Kate Kerg is a transformational operating executive, board advisor, and executive coach with more than 30 years of leadership experience spanning family-owned businesses, Fortune 100 enterprises, and private equity-backed organizations. Her career has been defined by an ability to understand the whole business—from commercial strategy, pricing, and customer growth to operations, financial performance, talent development, and succession planning. Having served as an owner, operator, senior corporate executive, and CEO, Kate brings a practical perspective to leadership and governance grounded in firsthand accountability. She understands that sustainable growth requires more than a compelling strategy; it requires disciplined execution, financial fluency, strong leadership, and an organization capable of delivering results over time.
Kate’s business perspective was shaped early in her career through her family’s fifth-generation foodservice business in Ohio. At Buchy Food Service, she learned the business from the inside out, ultimately becoming Vice President and a minority owner with responsibility spanning sales, marketing, finance, operations, people, and organizational strategy. The experience gave her an entrepreneur’s understanding of what business owners carry every day—the responsibility for employees and customers, the pressure of financial performance, and the need to balance immediate demands with long-term decisions. When the family ultimately chose to sell the company to Sysco, Kate served as project manager for the strategic transaction and helped guide the organization through the transition. That experience gave her a particularly valuable perspective on succession, transaction readiness, ownership change, and the emotional as well as financial dimensions of selling a family enterprise.
Following the acquisition, Kate began a period of progressive leadership within Sysco and its specialty distribution businesses. She advanced through merchandising leadership positions at Sysco Cincinnati before becoming President of Sysco Pittsburgh, where she assumed full P&L responsibility for the operating company. In Pittsburgh, Kate led a seven-figure financial turnaround, repositioned an underperforming operation, achieved the number-one safety ranking in the Sysco network, and earned Sysco’s prestigious “Haul of Fame” operating recognition. Her leadership approach combined financial accountability with culture building, customer focus, and strategic planning, demonstrating her ability to improve performance without losing sight of the people responsible for delivering it.
Kate’s responsibilities continued to expand as she moved into FreshPoint, Sysco’s specialty produce distribution network. As Area President for the eastern United States and Puerto Rico, she oversaw approximately $1 billion in annual revenue across eight specialty distribution companies and roughly 1,500 associates. She drove P&L growth while developing leadership capability across the organization, coaching site presidents and contributing to enterprise initiatives involving revenue management, continuous improvement, partnership selling, and commercial analytics. Her combination of operating depth and commercial expertise positioned her to contribute not simply as a regional leader, but as an enterprise strategist capable of connecting customer growth, operational execution, financial performance, and organizational development.
At the corporate level, Kate was subsequently appointed Vice President, Commercial – Italian Specialty for Sysco, where she helped build and launch a new go-to-market platform following the acquisition of Greco and Sons. She developed a comprehensive commercial approach encompassing customer segmentation, merchandising and product mix, pricing, marketing, and field sales enablement. The platform expanded across 70 markets in less than a year, demonstrating Kate’s ability to translate acquisition strategy into scalable commercial execution. Her experience across both acquisitions and divestitures has given her an unusually balanced perspective on M&A: she understands transactions as a selling owner, an integrating executive, and a leader accountable for realizing value after the deal closes.
Kate later advanced to Area President of the full FreshPoint network, assuming P&L accountability for 14 specialty distribution operating companies representing more than $3 billion in annual revenue and approximately 2,600 associates. Under her leadership, the portfolio delivered above-plan performance and achieved the number-one KPI Scorecard ranking in the specialty division across customer, sales, operations, profit, and people measures. She also led the integration of acquired businesses, coached and developed nine region presidents, and helped establish a culture of accountability and organizational depth. A 95 percent employee engagement index—above company benchmarks overall and among her direct leadership team—reflected a principle that has remained constant throughout her career: exceptional business performance and exceptional people leadership should reinforce one another rather than compete.
Most recently, Kate served as Chief Executive Officer of Worldwide Produce, a private equity-backed, middle-market foodservice and specialty produce distributor in Southern California. As CEO, she was responsible for enterprise-wide leadership encompassing growth strategy, commercial operations, organizational structure, and significant business transformation. She established commercial frameworks, strengthened KPI and financial-reporting discipline, restructured key functions, and coached the executive leadership team through substantial organizational change while maintaining operational continuity and customer relationships. Serving as a PE-backed CEO further expanded Kate’s governance perspective, giving her direct experience working within sponsor expectations and balancing near-term value creation with the organizational capabilities required for sustainable performance.
Across these roles, Kate has developed expertise that extends well beyond the foodservice and specialty produce sectors in which she built much of her career. Her strengths encompass commercial growth and go-to-market strategy, P&L and balance-sheet leadership, pricing and revenue management, customer segmentation, supply chain and distribution, operational improvement, M&A integration, succession planning, organizational design, executive coaching, talent development, and strategic planning. Her professional profile also reflects extensive capabilities in leadership development, sales management, business development, purchasing, operations, strategic thinking, and cross-functional leadership. While foodservice, hospitality, specialty produce, distribution, supply chain, and related industries represent natural areas of alignment, she is open to opportunities in technology and other sectors where her operating, commercial, and organizational experience can create meaningful value.
Central to Kate’s leadership philosophy is the belief that organizations ultimately grow through people. Throughout her career, she has coached hundreds of executives and emerging leaders, helping them strengthen decision-making, develop financial literacy, assume greater accountability, and prepare for expanded responsibilities. Her approach is grounded in servant leadership but reinforced by high expectations for performance. Whether guiding a family business through succession, coaching a senior executive, integrating an acquisition, restructuring an organization, or developing a commercial strategy, Kate focuses on creating the clarity and capability that allow people to perform at their best.
Kate’s commitment to leadership extends beyond the companies she has managed. Her community and board service has included organizations such as the Community Liver Alliance, Darke County YMCA, Greenville City Park Board of Commissioners, Greenville Schools Foundation, Greenville City Schools Business Advisory Council, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Council and Endowment Trust, Boy Scouts of America, March of Dimes, and hospice volunteering. She has also developed substantial presentation experience throughout her corporate career, speaking internally to audiences ranging from small leadership groups to gatherings of approximately 500 people and participating in presentations and panel discussions. Her professional skills profile likewise reflects public speaking alongside leadership and strategic capabilities.
Today, Kate is particularly interested in extending her impact through board director and advisory opportunities. For her, board service represents a natural continuation of a career spent helping people, leaders, and organizations grow. She brings the perspective of someone who has experienced business from nearly every side of the table: fifth-generation family-business owner, selling shareholder, Fortune 100 executive, multi-company P&L leader, acquisition integrator, private equity-backed CEO, advisor, and executive coach. That range allows her to challenge assumptions while remaining empathetic to the realities facing management teams. Her goal is not simply to advise from a distance, but to contribute judgment, ask consequential questions, strengthen leadership, and help organizations build enduring value.
Kate earned her degree in Public Administration from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and began her professional career in public-sector communications before moving fully into business leadership. That early communications experience—including serving in communications roles for the Ohio Auditor of State and the Ohio Department of Public Safety—provided a foundation in messaging, stakeholder engagement, and communicating clearly under scrutiny. Those skills have remained valuable throughout a career in which she has repeatedly needed to align employees, customers, investors, owners, and leadership teams around change and strategic priorities.
What distinguishes Kate is ultimately the breadth of experience behind her advice. She has worked inside a family enterprise, helped sell it, operated within one of the world’s largest food distribution companies, led billions of dollars in revenue across multiple operating businesses, integrated acquisitions, executed turnarounds, and served as CEO under private equity ownership. Yet the common thread throughout those experiences has remained remarkably consistent: build capable people, understand the economics of the business, make thoughtful strategic choices, and create an organization prepared for what comes next. For companies seeking a board director or advisor who combines operating credibility with commercial insight, financial discipline, and a genuine commitment to developing people, Kate offers a perspective forged through decades of real accountability.
Character:
Kate leads with integrity, accountability, humility, and a deeply held belief that leadership is ultimately about helping others become more capable. Her experience as an owner, executive, CEO, coach, and community volunteer has reinforced a leadership style that pairs high performance expectations with genuine investment in people.
Knowledge:
She brings more than three decades of operating knowledge across foodservice, specialty distribution, supply chain, commercial strategy, financial performance, M&A, organizational development, and succession. Her expertise is grounded not only in strategic planning but also in direct responsibility for P&Ls, operating companies, acquisitions, transformations, and teams numbering in the thousands.
Strategic:
Kate sees organizations as interconnected systems in which growth strategy, customers, pricing, operations, capital, talent, and culture must work together. She combines an entrepreneur’s instinct with large-enterprise discipline to identify opportunities, evaluate tradeoffs, develop scalable strategies, and prepare businesses for growth, ownership transitions, or transformation.
Communication:
She communicates with the credibility of an executive who has personally navigated difficult decisions and taken responsibility for significant business outcomes. Her extensive background in public communications, executive leadership, coaching, presentations, and panel discussions enables her to translate complex issues into clear, actionable priorities. She effectively engages a diverse range of stakeholders, from frontline leaders to senior executives, business owners, investors, and board members, fostering understanding, alignment, and meaningful collaboration.
