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Eight years in, Jeff Harmening has learned to hold firm to the basics while embracing change at the Golden Valley-based company known for cereal. By Brooks Johnson The Minnesota Star Tribune November 10, 2025 at 11:31AM Jeff Harmening, one of the longest-tenured CEOs in the food industry, has led General Mills since 2017. He still has plenty of work to do. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune) Even the notoriously pessimistic Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard thought the company has been “doing all the right things” to spur growth after General Mills’ investor day last month. “For now, the company seems to be making some slow but steady progress,” she wrote. Besides, Harmening, 58, isn’t ready to talk about his own legacy just yet. There’s too much still to do. Related Coverage “I’m excited about the direction we’re going,” he said. “I’m actually pretty energized.” There’s also more changing to do. The company is going through another restructuring, the second major reorganization of Harmening’s tenure. Brands might come and go as consumer tastes shift. Already artificial colors are on the way out. Harmening makes some of those big decisions, but it’s ultimately his job to shepherd everyone in the company in the same direction. “It’s not that you have to be perfect,” he said. “You just have to change better than everybody else.” General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening at the company's Golden Valley headquarters last week. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune) Stubborn optimism When Harmening first decorated his corner office in Golden Valley, General Mills did not sell pet food, and it still held tight to Yoplait and Hamburger Helper. Since 2017, General Mills has spent more than $10 billion acquiring pet food brands and has sold off the yogurt and boxed-meal businesses the company helped pioneer. Blue Buffalo was a massive bet that had many critics inside and outside the company. But it has been a major driver of growth for General Mills as pet parents started spending big on their dogs and cats. “There were a few people unhappy when we did that,” Harmening said. “Courage is important.” Wins like that are harder to come by for big food companies, whether because of regulatory pressure or inflation-strapped consumers cutting back on nonessentials as much as they can. General Mills is the nation’s top cereal producer, but the category as a whole is in decline, as are other retail food areas General Mills dominates. “We said we have two things we want to accomplish: One is that we want to keep our employees safe, and the second is we want to keep the food supply safe,” he said. “That’s it. No financial metrics. And that was a command intent to the organization.” That “command intent” is one of several leadership pillars, like authenticity, courage and empathy, that Harmening teaches students at DePauw University, his alma mater. “In order for you to lead, someone has to follow, and people aren’t following strategies and plans, they’re following people,” he said. “They follow because they trust you, and people have a choice of whether they follow you or not. You cannot command somebody to follow you.” Harmening came up through General Mills as a marketer, and he sells his vision for the company with an almost laid-back charm. Even as he’s sticking to a script, like onstage at investor day last month, there’s a tenor of improvisation and approachability more common in politicians than Fortune 500 CEOs. And Harmening does have to play politics from time to time, as he was one of several food execs invited to the White House to speak with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year. Harmening has worked to keep the company in the national conversation with his role on the Consumer Brands Association executive committee. He also serves on the boards for Bloomington-based Toro Co., Minnesota Business Partnership and MBOLD, a coalition of food and agriculture leaders. Brooks Johnson Business Reporter Brooks Johnson is a business reporter covering Minnesota’s food industry, agribusinesses and 3M. See More
