• Ad Age, Monday, November 27, 2006 12:15 PM

The position of Barbara Ford, Kraft Foods vice president-global advertising services, will be eliminated in January as part of the food giant's overhaul of its marketing services functions. The move, according to one executive close to Kraft, signifies the sea change afoot, where "once creativity, innovation and big ideas were thought to come from developing complex processes and now they realize it is in fact the opposite."

In September, new Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld acknowledged that the company was paralyzed by centralized decision-making, and vowed to give more power back to individual business teams. She named a new executive team, including the company's first chief marketing officer, Jeri Finard. Finard is also looking for a new global head of integrated marketing and communications--a role that ostensibly eliminates the old-school differentiation Kraft has had between advertising and marketing, according to another executive with knowledge of Kraft. A search is also underway for a head of global innovation, a role vacated in recent weeks by longtime Kraft executive Mary Kay Haben.

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