Chobani adds two staffers, promotes another

Chobani announced that veteran CNN and Bloomberg Television correspondent Cristina Alesci will serve as chief corporate affairs office. She will report to Chobani President & COO Peter McGuinness in her new role, leading external and internal communications, government and community relations, social impact and philanthropy. She will also join Chobani’s Executive Leadership team. Chobani created the CCAO role for her.

Alesci joins Chobani from CNN, where she was a business and political correspondent since 2014. Known for her in-depth coverage of financial markets and government policies, Alesci has appeared regularly on Anderson Cooper 360, The Lead with Jake Tapper, The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Erin Burnett’s Out Front and Newsroom. She has delivered original reporting and analysis on breaking financial and economic news and trends, including U.S. public companies’ response to COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement and White House economic, trade and social policies. She has interviewed many of the country’s leading politicians and business executives, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon, Starbucks Corporation founder and former CEO Howard Schultz, and Chobani’s founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya for a 2015 CNN story about the company’s policy of employing refugees.

Prior to her work at CNN, Alesci worked as a print and on-air reporter for five years at Bloomberg Television, covering the aftermath of the financial crisis and breaking news on some of the biggest business and private equity deals that followed. She received a M.A. in Journalism with honors from The City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, a B.S. in Criminal Justice magna cum laude from Pace University and a post-baccalaureate certificate in business from Columbia University. She serves as a director and treasurer of the board of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and volunteers as an advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, hosting many of its major fundraising events and raising awareness about Type 1 Diabetes.

Chobani also announced that finance executive Jody Macedonio will serve as chief financial officer, effective Dec. 28. She will also report to McGuinness. Chobani’s interim CFO Michelle Brooks will continue her role as treasurer and take on the newly created role of chief business development officer. Brooks remains on the executive leadership team, reporting to Macedonio.

Macedonio has more than 20 years of global experience as a finance executive in the consumer goods industry. Most recently she served as the CFO of 8th Avenue Food & Provisions, a PE-backed CPG company affiliated with Post Holdings and, prior to that, CFO of Dean Foods. Rising through the ranks in senior finance roles at multi-nationals like Henkel AG, PepsiCo, Nestle, and SmithKline Beecham, she’s led complex turnarounds, productivity initiatives, restructurings and large-scale post acquisition integrations. She is a board director for 4word, a national nonprofit organization for professional women where she mentors and is an advocate for diversity and inclusion. 

Brooks’s new role as chief business development officer reflects her investment experience and business acumen. She will continue to play a role in representing Chobani with its lender community and lead new ventures to deliver more performance and growth.