After five generations of family rule, King Arthur Flour barely survived a diversification binge. After righting itself and expanding under its first non-family CEO, it now has a radical plan to maintain its reign: three co-CEOS.
leans against the wall of the sparsely appointed office he shares with his two co-CEOs at the storied flour brand’s headquarters in Norwich, Vermont. “When we’re together, we’re“I’m actually not qualified to do it on my own. I do believe I make them better,” says Suzanne McDowell, 54, another of the CEOs, before catching herself. “I help them! I don’t make them, I“To have two people that you can be completely open and transparent with is very powerful,” adds Karen Colberg, 56.
King Arthur’s main business, selling five-pound bags of all-purpose flour and high-protein bread flour to groceries across the country is a tough, low-margin one. Global wheat prices have fallen nearly 7% a year for the past five years, while American tastes have shifted away from wheat to alternative flours and grain-free diets. And competition is tough in the roughly $10 billion domestic flour market, whereis up against giants like General Mills and artisan peers like Bob’s Red Mill.
For 200 years, King Arthur was a family affair. It started as an importer of flour from England and became a flour producer under the Sands family, who owned and ran it for five generations. Frank Sands, the last of them, joined the business in 1963 after he got out of Harvard Business School.
“It will seem like a bigger transition [than it is] if you don’t understand how close of a team we were at the top,” Voigt says. “There were very few big decisions I made by myself that I made without them.”
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