Following a series of M&A deals and executive shifts, Sonoco is restructuring its business units again and naming new segment leaders.
Sonoco is consolidating its metal packaging and rigid paper containers businesses under one structure less than two years after making those two of the company’s four core business segments, alongside industrial packaging and the thermoformed and flexibles unit. Sonoco divested the flex-therm business to Toppan Holdings for $1.8 billion in April. In June, the company confirmed it would invest millions of dollars into four U.S. facilities to expand manufacturing of its rigid paper cans with paper bottoms.
The newly combined metal and RPC segment will be based on two geographies: consumer packaging in EMEA/APAC and the Americas. Seán Cairns has been named President of Consumer Packaging for EMEA/APAC and will report to Sonoco CEO Howard Coker. Ernest Haynes has been named President of Consumer Packaging for the Americas and also will report to Coker.
Cairns previously was the global president for RPCs as of 2022, and he joined the company in 2008 after working for Crown’s Metal Packaging EMEA business for 13 years. Haynes previously was president of Sonoco Metal Packaging NA as of 2022 and joined the company in 1997.
With these leadership announcements, Chief Operating Officer Rodger Fuller will step back from his temporary position as Interim CEO of Metal Packaging EMEA. He assumed the dual role in June upon the death of that group’s leader, Tomás López. Lopez previously was CEO at Switzerland-based metal packaging company Eviosys and had served as head of Sonoco’s Metal Packaging EMEA since December 2024 when Sonoco acquired Eviosys for $3.8 billion.
The Eviosys acquisition supported Sonoco’s heightened focus on metal packaging production. The company’s business unit restructuring in early 2024 underscored that focus, as did the acquisition of Ball Metalpack in 2022.
Another footprint change was finalized earlier this month when Sonoco announced it completed the divestiture of its ThermoSafe temperature-controlled packaging business to private equity investment firm Arsenal Capital Partners for a total purchase price of up to $725 million.
Other recent executive changes include Sonoco hiring Paul Joachimczyk to be CFO as of June 30, following the departure of former CFO Rob Dillard amid a leadership shakeup in January. In July, Joachimczyk spoke during his first Sonoco earnings call as CFO.
