Sonoco names chief financial officer

Sonoco, a Hartsville, South Carolina-based sustainable packaging company, has announced Rob Dillard has been named chief financial officer (CFO), effective July 1.

Dillard, 48, most recently served as the company's chief strategy officer. In his new role, he will be responsible for Sonoco's global finance functions, including audit, controllership, financial reporting, tax, treasury, risk management and insurance, financial planning and analysis, as well as strategy and corporate development.

"We are pleased to have Rob assume this critical finance leadership role," Sonoco President and CEO Howard Coker says. "Rob is a strategic leader within the company and brings extensive experience in corporate finance and accounting, operations, strategy and corporate development from both Fortune 500 companies and investment banking."

Coker continues, "As our new CFO, Rob will use his experience and deep knowledge of Sonoco's culture and strategic opportunities to partner with our global business leaders to further drive performance improvement and shareholder value."

Dillard takes over for Julie Albrecht, who announced May 25 she was departing the company June 30. Albrecht joined Sonoco in March 2017 as corporate vice president, treasurer and assistant CFO, and the company says she has been instrumental in its activities to improve cash flow generation, de-risk and annuitize its domestic defined pension plans and finance more than $2 billion in strategic acquisitions.

Dillard joined Sonoco in 2018 and Sonoco says he has led its corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions activities in that time, including leading the development of the company's overall strategy, which includes the $1.35 billion acquisition of Ball Metalpack—Sonoco's largest acquisition to date.