President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Lancaster Colony
Search every verified David Ciesinski interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. David Ciesinski, president and CEO of Lancaster Colony (parent company of T. Marzetti), spoke at Carnegie Mellon University's W.L. Mellon Speaker Series on January 17, 2025. He discussed his leadership approach, including rebuilding the company's leadership team since joining in 2016 and implementing a "better food company growth plan" that he said nearly doubled the business and delivered top quartile financial results. Ciesinski described a ransomware attack on July 20, 2019, that shut down the company's systems for about six months, requiring the scrapping of over a thousand computers and a move to a cloud-based environment, which he said later helped the company respond to COVID-19. He also outlined the company's innovation process, including developing a Nashville hot sauce for KFC that he said tripled demand forecasts. In a 2022 video, Ciesinski and Director of Safety Karl Sommer discussed the company's safety record, noting reductions in injury rates over five to six years and a goal of achieving a total recordable incident rate under 1.0, which they described as "world class." Ciesinski highlighted the Chatham Village facility's pursuit of OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star designation, the highest level of safety recognition, and said the company planned to apply lessons from that program to other locations. He emphasized that safety improvements included automating packaging and palletizing activities.
“Since joining the company in 2016, I have rebuilt the leadership team and led the development and implementation of the company's better food company growth plan, which has nearly doubled the size of the business and consistently delivered top quartile financial results.”
“If you want to build a tall building, you need a big, wide, strong foundation. Lateral moves afford you the ability to build a foundation that's broader and deeper, helping you understand how the business works more completely so you can make better decisions.”
“We're in the people business; we just so happen to make food. If you want to help a business grow, you have to figure out how to help the people in that business grow as well. Engaging people authentically unlocks magic and leads to the most rewarding moments in a career.”
“Culture begins with you—that's the little culture. You can't control whether your boss is a jerk, but you can control whether the people that work for you have a boss that's a jerk. Trust, transparency, honesty, collaboration, performance, then results—that's the layered cake of culture.”
A prominent C-suite executive, David Ciesinski (MSIA '96) is a forward-thinking leader who measures his success by more than ...
T. Marzetti's Director of Safety Karl Sommer and CEO Dave Ciesinski discuss our world-class safety! Our total recordable incident ...
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