International Paper announced that Tom Hamic, its chief commercial officer, will transition into a newly created role: executive vice president and president of North American packaging solutions.

Starting Sept. 1, Hamic will lead IP’s North American container and containerboard business. He will report to new CEO Andy Silvernail, who started on May 1 and led his first IP earnings call last month.

"Tom is a strategic and effective leader with a long track record of success," Silvernail said in a news release. 

Since joining IP in 1991, Hamic has held a variety of roles in the United States and Europe in sales, marketing, finance, strategic planning and leadership. He was named a company officer in 2009 and became a senior vice president in 2019. In addition to holding the position of chief commercial officer, Hamic most recently was senior vice president and general manager of North American Container. 

Hamic has frequently spoken about International Paper’s financials during the company’s quarterly earnings calls, including discussion of price increases during the first-quarter earnings call in April. He has also detailed during several calls the status of customer destocking following the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on IP. 

During IP’s most recent earnings call last month, Silvernail detailed significant strategy changes to turn around what he described as performance deterioration over the last 10 years. IP’s Q2 2024 data showed a nearly 32% year-over-year increase in containerboard sales volumes and a nearly 6% decrease in corrugated packaging sales volumes. IP is also looking to grow through its major pending acquisition of DS Smith.