How this former CMO plans to put her stamp on the CEO role at Mayver's

Building maturity and growth through marketing, sales and R&D is in Bethaney George’s sights as she puts her stamp on the CEO role at Victorian-based FMCG, Mayver’s.

The former True Foods GM of marketing, sales, category and innovation officially took up the top job at Mayver’s in September. She replaced former boss, Ross Mudford, who had held the CEO’s post for nine years but had been working in a part-time capacity over the last few years.

George told CMO she was attracted to the Australian-owned company firstly because of its values and “passion for creating better for you, high quality and delicious products that consumers love”.

“Being family owned and Australian made, with a reputation of a collaborative culture and nimbleness of business, was of large appeal for me,” she said. “Paul Raff [owner] and the team have done an amazing job in making the brand a household name over the past 13 years. This is reflected in the 56 per cent market share across the natural spreads category and passionate, loyal consumer base.”

Mayver’s also boasts 86,000 followers on social. However, with that said, George spied a significant opportunity for future growth.

“I am excited by the opportunity to utilise my experience to drive the business further through new strategic plans across all aspects of the business,” she continued.

Credit: Bethaney George

George was confident her previous experiences have equipped her with the necessary knowledge required for the CEO role at Mayver’s. Prior to True Foods, George worked in general manager retail and business management roles at Patties Foods, Sanofi and Longtable Group. Earlier in her career, she was in account management at Unilever, Foster’s Group, Asahi and Campbell Arnott’s.

“My career over the years has spanned across all key business functions including commercial pricing and negotiation, 3PM sourcing, operations, freight, procurement, sales, marketing, innovation and category insights,” George explained. “I have been in small to medium-sized businesses where I’ve had full visibility and accountability across many departments within the organisation I was within.

“Mayver’s is quite early in the company maturity evolution, with the business state in a relatively similar position to True Foods when I joined them three-and-a-half years ago.”

George’s work at True Foods, and her successful efforts to turnaround the Simson’s Pantry wraps brand earned her a place on the 2022 edition of the CMO50 list.

“I feel this is the perfect role for me to enter to the CEO level. The business and team are very supportive, with high level of skill and knowledge throughout the company,” George commented. “Many team members have been at the business for eight plus years, further demonstrating the great culture and high growth continuity within our business.”

While George believed Mayver’s had a well-performing team across all functions of the business, she’s keen to better harness sales, marketing and R&D departments. Her priority is to build out the team and in-house structure across key roles by bringing more talent into the business, reducing a reliance on external agencies and consulting personnel.

As well as focusing on building the future growth structure and developing people, George said she’s looking to build and embed long-term forward strategic plans as well as Mayver’s Australia-first innovation pipeline initially.

“There is such a large opportunity to step change the way we do business within the market,” George said. “Being the number one brand within natural spreads, leveraging our category leadership to make the lives for our retailer partners easier and bring exciting innovation to the categories our Mayver’s brand is a natural fit within and that deliver on real consumer needs.

“Internal processes and procedures are also of priority; building and imbedding frameworks that our team can utilise to make communication, collaboration and project management easier across our cross-functional teams.”

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