Ian Friendly was elected Executive Vice President of General Mills in 2006 and has corporate oversight of the Big G, Yoplait, Meals, Pillsbury, Snacks and Baking Products divisions.Ian Friendly was elected Executive Vice President of General Mills in 2006 and has corporate oversight of the Big G, Yoplait, Meals, Pillsbury, Snacks and Baking Products divisions.
Ian began his career in 1983 as a marketing assistant with General Mills Canada. A year later, he moved to the U.S. cereal business. Over the next decade, he held progressively broader marketing assignments in the Big G, Betty Crocker, and Snacks divisions. From 1994 to 1998, he served as Vice President-Marketing for Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW) - General Mills’ joint venture with Nestlé - where he led expansion throughout Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Ian returned to the United States and was named President of the Yoplait-Colombo division in 1998. In the four years under his leadership, the yogurt business achieved extraordinary growth, and Yoplait became the number one selling yogurt in the United States. In 2002, he became President of Big G cereals. He served as President and CEO of CPW from 2004 to 2006 where he was responsible for a billion-dollar-plus global cereal business distributed to over 130 countries outside of North America.
He serves as an advisory board member of the Queen’s University School of Business in Kingston, Ontario, and is on the boards of Artspace Projects, Inc. in Minneapolis and Minnesota Public Radio. He has previously served as a board member for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in the Twin Cities.
Ian received his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Queen’s University in 1983. He and his wife Carol have three children, and enjoy travel, skiing, hiking, and family activities.