Ivan Pollard

Ivan Pollard joined General Mills in July 2017 as Senior Vice President, Global Chief Marketing Officer.

His remit is to help refine the marketing philosophies and practices of General Mills in bringing its powerful portfolio of brands into modern life in ways that grow the business.

Ivan came to General Mills from The Coca-Cola Company where over the previous seven years he had been the Vice President of Global Connections and then the Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing, North America.

Prior to joining The Coca-Coca Company, Pollard was a Global Partner in Naked Communications, the world’s largest connections planning company.

Pollard brings with him 27 years of working in communications planning in agencies such as BMP, DDB Needham and Wieden+Kennedy. He also opened his own company in the late nineties, Unity, which was the first independent strategic communications planning agency in the world where it is believed the term “Connections Planning” was coined.

Over the span of his agency career, Ivan has worked for big, global clients – such as Nike, Microsoft, Adidas, Vodafone, Sony, Coca-Cola, 20th Century Fox and even Lucasfilm creating Jedi marketing tricks for the global connections strategies for Star Wars Episodes I, II and III.

Ivan lives in White Bear Lake, Minnesota with his wife Mary (who is much smarter than he is) and three young children (who are much smarter than their mom).

Ivan has a BSc in Physics from Nottingham University and also has a nice unicycle.