Hillary Brick, senior vice president of marketing at the Giumarra Cos., Los Angeles, has retired after more than 26 years at the company.
She joined Giumarra in 1992, hired to lead the company’s trade and consumer marketing, an effort that has expanded beyond a one-woman department to a “dynamic marketing and business development team under her strategic vision and leadership,” according to a news release.
At Giumarra, she developed the company’s tagline, “Feeding the world in a healthy way,” and created the Nature’s Partner brand identity in 2003, according to the release.
“Hillary is a class act and instilled a strong sense of professionalism in our organization that will remain with us for generations to come,” John Corsaro, CEO of the Giumarra Cos., said in the release. “We are better for having worked alongside her and her mentorship in our day-to-day operations will be greatly missed.”
Brick, a native of New Zealand, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Japanese, and was a Japanese teacher, followed by living in Tokyo while working for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the release.
That led to an opportunity at the New Zealand Kiwifruit Marketing Board, where she met Don Corsaro of the Giumarra Cos.
Brick’s efforts to introduce New Zealand kiwifruit to North America caught the attention of Giumarra.
“Her relentless determination and inclination to always seek new opportunities showed me that if anyone could build our marketing program at Giumarra, it would be Hillary,” Don Corsaro, former president and current chairman of the Giumarra Cos., said in the release.
Ed McLaughlin, the Robert G. Tobin professor of marketing and director of the Food Industry Management Program at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, said among executives at food and produce companies, Brick “stands clearly above the rest with her unique combination of keen strategic insights, operational savvy, and incomparable interpersonal skills.”
Brick enjoys running, reading, cooking, kayaking, traveling and spending time with her family, according to the release.
