The beloved cookie brand appoints Mondelēz veteran to lead customer growth
April 1, 2024, New York, NY – Tate’s Bake Shop, one of the fastest-growing cookie brands known for its award-winning cookies, announced the appointment of Cass Black to the role of Chief Customer Officer (CCO). In this role, Black will sit on the Tate’s leadership team and help lead the brand’s growth culture, leveraging customer relationships through both the Tate’s Warehouse and Mondelēz direct store distribution (DSD) sales teams.
A result-oriented and visionary sales leader, Black joins Tate’s from Mondelēz, where he most recently served as Customer Vice President for Mondelēz International. In this role, he led the strategic transformation of the DSD retail operating model for the sales team, which the 2023 Customer Advantage Sales Survey recognized as the #1 DSD team across North America.
Black has served in a variety of business development sales strategy roles at Mondelēz and has deep strategy experience in category and customer insights, sales planning, and customer development. He has also held customer-facing sales roles, including his first assignment as a Sales Representative for the Nabisco Planters
LifeSavers company followed by serving as a Retail Sales Manager and over time becoming the Customer Vice President of South Area Business Teams that called on Publix, HEB, and Military Commissaries. Black will report directly to Esi Seng, CEO of Tate’s Bake Shop.
Black joins Jessica Goon, Tate’s newly appointed Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), to round out a commercial powerhouse team. Goon joined the brand in August 2023 and previously served as the Chief Growth Officer at Spring Foods, a food portfolio company, where she led marketing and sales activity across the company’s business units. Prior to Spring Foods, she served as the Vice President of Digital Marketing and Consumer Experience at KIND Snacks. An experienced marketer with deep digital experience and a track record for powerhouse brand building, Goon is well-positioned to lead Tate’s through its next stage of growth.
Together in their respective roles, Goon and Black are poised to further the iconic Tate’s Bake Shop brand’s commercial success and maintain its momentum as one of the fastest-growing and most innovative legacy cookie brands.
ABOUT TATE’S BAKE SHOP
Tate’s Bake Shop was founded in 1980 by Kathleen King out of a storefront in Southampton, New York, and quickly became a local favorite for their signature thin-and-crispy chocolate chip cookies. Over 40 years later, Tate’s now has a national following and is one of the fastest-growing cookie brands in the U.S., beloved for its simple and high-quality ingredients that can be found in anyone’s kitchen. Tate’s has continuously exercised its innovative spirit, extending beyond traditional cookies and expanding its portfolio to include innovative and seasonal products that meet the needs and interests of consumers while remaining rooted in and guided by “The Bake Shop Way,” which is a collective commitment to heritage, uncompromising excellence, and bake-craft. Tate’s continues to raise the bar for itself and the baking community with award-winning cookies and desserts that delight. Follow along @tatesbakeshop and learn more at www.tatesbakeshop.com.
