Mondelez International, Inc.
Founders
Irene Rosenfeld, Adolphus Green, James L. Kraft · Founded 2012 · HQ today: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Mondelez was founded by Irene Rosenfeld, Adolphus Green, James L. Kraft in 2012 in Chicago, United States. It is now led by Dirk Van de Put.
Mondelez traces its legal lineage to Kraft Foods, whose predecessor National Dairy Products was formed in 1923. In 2012, Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld split the company: the North American grocery business became Kraft Foods Group (later Kraft Heinz), and the global snacks business, including Nabisco, LU and the Cadbury business acquired in 2010, became Mondelēz International on October 1, 2012. The name was built from words suggesting 'world' and 'delicious', proposed by employees.
Marketing executive with a Ph.D. from Cornell; led Kraft Foods from 2006 after senior roles at Kraft and Frito-Lay.
As CEO of Kraft Foods, Irene Rosenfeld led the 2010 Cadbury acquisition and the 2012 split that created Mondelēz International. She was Mondelez's first CEO until November 2017 and chair until early 2018. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Chicago lawyer who organized bakery mergers in the 1890s.
Adolphus Green helped form the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) in 1898 and led it as president. Nabisco, which introduced Oreo in 1912, later became part of Kraft and is now a core Mondelez business. He is a heritage founder, not a founder of Mondelez itself. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Canadian-born cheese merchant who started a wholesale business in Chicago in 1903.
James L. Kraft founded the business that became Kraft, and patented a process for processed cheese in 1916. Mondelez descends legally from the Kraft corporate family, so he is a heritage founder rather than a founder of the 2012 company.
James L. Kraft was born in 1874 in Stevensville.
James Lewis Kraft was born on December 11, 1874 and died on February 16, 1953. He emigrated from Canada to the United States in 1902. His pasteurization process produced cheese that did not need refrigeration and could be shipped long distances.
Amit Banati
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Before becoming CFO, he served as President of the AMEA region, establishing it as the company's fastest-growing and most resilient geographic division.
Dirk Van de Put
Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Van de Put refocused Mondelez on chocolate, biscuits and baked snacks, decentralized decisions to regional teams, and grew net revenues from about $25.9B in 2017 to $38.5B in 2025. Since June 2026 he has also chaired AB InBev's board.
Irene Rosenfeld
Former Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Rosenfeld created Mondelez through the 2012 Kraft split and led it through its first five years, a period marked by zero-based budgeting and activist pressure from Trian and Pershing Square.
John Cadbury (1801 to 1889) was a Quaker philanthropist and entrepreneur who opened a small shop in Birmingham, England, in 1824 selling tea, coffee, and drinking chocolate. He believed drinking chocolate was a healthy alternative to alcohol, establishing the Cadbury brand that received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1854.
In 1879, George and Richard Cadbury relocated their factory to rural Birmingham, creating 'Bournville', a model industrial village featuring quality cottage housing, parks, schools, healthcare, and sports fields for factory workers, pioneering modern corporate social responsibility.
Adolphus Green was a lawyer and business executive who merged the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company, New York Biscuit Company, and United States Baking Company in 1898 to form the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), inventing Uneeda Biscuit and creating Oreo in 1912.
Philippe Suchard (1797 to 1888) opened a confectionery shop in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1826. In 1901, the company registered the brand name 'Milka' (a combination of 'Milch' and 'Kakao'), wrapping Alpine milk chocolate in its well-known lilac paper.
In 1908 in Bern, Switzerland, Theodor Tobler and his cousin Emil Baumann invented Toblerone, a triangular milk chocolate bar infused with honey and almond nougat. Its well-known triangular prism shape was inspired by the Matterhorn peak in the Swiss Alps.
James L. Kraft (1874 to 1953) began selling cheese from a horse-drawn wagon in Chicago in 1903. In 1916, he patented pasteurized processed cheese in tins, supplying millions of pounds of cheese to the US military in World War I and building Kraft Foods Inc.
In January 2010, Kraft Foods then-CEO Irene Rosenfeld completed a historic £11.9 billion ($19.5 billion) acquisition of British confectionery icon Cadbury plc. The acquisition combined Nabisco's global biscuit operations with Cadbury's dominant chocolate network in the UK and emerging markets, laying the groundwork for Mondelēz.
The founding principles of John Cadbury (fair treatment of workers), Adolphus Green (tamper-proof sanitary packaging), and Philippe Suchard (Swiss chocolate craftsmanship) remain the cultural and operational foundation of Mondelēz International today.
Adolphus Green founded the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) in 1898 in Chicago. At a time when crackers and cookies were sold out of unsanitary wooden bulk barrels in general stores, Green invented the sealed, moisture-proof "In-Er-Seal" wax paper packaging for Uneeda Biscuits and later launched the Oreo in 1912, revolutionizing food safety and brand packaging.
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