Name: Peter Konieczny

New position: CEO of Amcor

Previous positions in 2024: Interim CEO; chief commercial officer

Amcor on Wednesday appointed Peter Konieczny its CEO. The veteran Amcor executive was named interim CEO in March upon then-CEO of nine years Ron Delia announcing plans to retire due to health reasons.

At the time, the company’s board of directors said it was “conducting a thorough search process to identify a permanent successor for the CEO role, which will include internal and external candidates.” Per the original announcement, Delia is supposed to offer continued advisory until Sept. 30.

In a statement Wednesday, Amcor Chairman Graeme Liebelt said, “Peter has demonstrated exceptional leadership in every role he has held during his career at Amcor, including as interim CEO where he has led the Company through a period of strengthening financial performance and set the business up for further progress.”

About half a year into Konieczny overseeing the company, Amcor reported ending its 2024 fiscal year in June with sales down more than 7% year over year, reflecting declines in both its larger flexibles and smaller rigid packaging business units. However, the company reported that volumes improved sequentially in the most recent quarter and returned to year-on-year growth “as customer demand improved.”

During the past year, the company pointed to customer destocking and muted consumer demand as factors that dragged down results. Konieczny said in August that, looking ahead to fiscal 2025, the company anticipates volume and earnings growth. 

On the recent earnings call, Konieczny was asked about portfolio structure and said “it’s hard for me right now as an interim to sort of formulate the views on the long-term strategy.” However, he added that he believed the business should home in on high-margin, high-growth categories. In the flexibles business for instance, “you can be everything to everybody and that has never really played out. I'm a big fan of focusing the business on those areas that are more attractive to us,” he said. Some of those attractive markets include premium coffee and healthcare.

Prior to becoming interim and now formally CEO, Konieczny had been a member of Amcor’s global management team since 2010. He served as a president in multiple business areas, including for specialty cartons and flexibles in different regions. He was chief commercial officer between September 2020 and April 2024. Before joining Amcor, Konieczny’s background in the packaging industry included time at Silgan White Cap.

In addition to appointing Konieczny as CEO, the board intends to nominate him as a director for election at the annual shareholder meeting, likely in November.

Following Konieczny’s promotion, Kirby Losch became Amcor’s chief commercial officer.

In a separate announcement Thursday, the company said that Fred Stephan has been appointed as chief operating officer and David Clark has been appointed chief sustainability officer. Both are new roles at Amcor and both will report to Konieczny. Stephan was previously the president for Amcor’s North American flexibles business and Clark was Amcor’s vice president for sustainability.

"By introducing the chief operating officer role, we are evolving our organization structure to help facilitate greater collaboration and drive faster growth across our flexibles business,” Konieczny said in a statement. “At the same time, aligned with our purpose, we are elevating sustainability by creating the chief sustainability officer role.”