Alfred Drewes

Director, Executive in Residence Program at Columbia Business School

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  • Columbia Business School

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Biography

Columbia Business School

Al Drewes ’82 brings over 35 years of executive experience with both global public and private equity portfolio companies in the consumer products space. Most recently he was the Chief Operating Officer of the Sun Products Corporation. Sun was a portfolio company owned by the private equity sponsor, Vestar Capital Partners. Al joined Sun in 2012 at a time when the company was struggling. Responsible for supply chain, finance, procurement, IT and customer service, he led the turnaround of the company through productivity and topline growth initiatives resulting in a highly successful monetization. In 2016, Sun was sold to Henkel AG for $3.6 Billion, a 12.9x multiple of EBITDA and one of the five largest private equity monetizations that year. Prior to joining Sun Products, Al was the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Pepsi Bottling Group for nine years. PBG was a $13.2 Billion NYSE company with operations across the globe. During his tenure as CFO, Al led initiates including multibillion dollar acquisitions in Mexico and Russia, successfully navigating the 2008 financial crisis while generating 10% CAGR EPS growth and a nearly 4x improvement in stock price. Prior to Sun he held multiple leadership positions with PepsiCo, including CFO, VP of Manufacturing Operations, General Manager of Sub Sahara Africa and VP of Planning and Business Development with PepsiCo International. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Audit Committee of Tab Foods Investments, based in Istanbul. He was formerly a Director of the Meredith Corporation. Al took his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and his MBA from Columbia, where he was Class Respondent. Areas of interest: private equity, public company CFO, multinational executive leadership, consumer products, emerging markets and M&A.

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