Stephen W. Sanger (born April 10, 1946) is a former chairman and chief executive officer of

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

, former chairman of

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...

, as well as a director of

Target Corporation Target Corporation (doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a compon ...

, and

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

Early life

A native of

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, Sanger received a BA degree in history from

DePauw University DePauw University is a private liberal arts university in Greencastle, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,972 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the G ...

in 1968 and an MBA degree from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1970. He joined

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...

in the marketing and sales department in Cincinnati.

Career

In 1974, Sanger joined General Mills in marketing, rising to the post of vice president and general manager of Northstar Division in 1983. He was the president of Yoplait USA from 1986 to 1988 and president of Big G Cereal Division from 1988 to 1991. Sanger was named senior vice president of General Mills in 1989 and executive vice president in 1991. He was elected to the board of directors as vice chairman in 1992. Named president of General Mills in September 1993, he held this post until May 1995 when he became chairman and chief executive officer. Sanger retired as CEO in September 2007 and as chairman in May 2008. He was a director of

and Wells Fargo & Company, and formerly served on the boards of Dayton Hudson Corporation, Donaldson Company, Grocery Manufacturers of America, and Minnesota Business Partnership. Sanger is a board member of Catalyst, the Guthrie Theatre, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and a member of the Business Council and the US Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.

Politics

In the political realm, he has been a member of Bush-Cheney 2000 and Bush-Cheney '04.

Controversy

Journalist

Michael Moss Michael Moss is an American journalist and author. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2010, and was a finalist for the prize in 2006 and 1999. He is also the recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers and ...

, in the New York Times and the book “ Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” criticized Sanger for refusing to change the policies of General Mills due to health concerns. He was elected Chairman of Wells Fargo’s Board of Directors in October 2016. On 15 August 2017, he announced that he was retiring and will step down in 2018 amid a company scandal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanger, Stephen Living people Chairmen of General Mills Wells Fargo 1946 births American chairpersons of corporations Businesspeople from Cincinnati DePauw University alumni Ross School of Business alumni Pfizer people