Fortune 500 experience, proven success

WFM Owner/President Hugh Williams is a Marketing and General Management professional with a track record of delivering superior performance.  A native of Minnesota, he spent a large part of his career as a brand manager at General Mills delivering record sales and profits to some of the world’s largest and most powerful brands such as Totino’s, Chex Mix and Pillsbury Toaster Strudel.

In addition to managing domestic brands, Hugh spent multiple years leading the development of International Strategic Growth for brands such as Nature Valley, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury with experience across Latin America, Asia and Europe.

 

Hugh’s philosophy is that a marketing strategy and plan is best developed by understanding the marketplace and competitive situation, profiling the target consumer and their needs, and leveraging a company’s and brand’s inherent strengths to meet those needs. There is no “one-size-fits-all” process to accomplish these tasks. The best process is one that combines an optimal mix of market and competitive assessment tools with consumer profiling and validation techniques that meet a client’s objectives, timeline and budget. That customization-to-scale process along with two decades of marketing strategy and brand management experience is the WGM difference.

 

When not engaged in food marketing, Hugh enjoys organizing networking and social events for the Twin Cities Alumni Network, running, hiking, bicycling, kayaking, yoga, reading historical fiction, practicing Spanish and watching sci-fi.

Hugh holds an MBA in Marketing and Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.