Management

Scott Ford, Co-founder of Westrock Coffee Company, serves as Chief Executive Officer. When Scott started Westrock Coffee, the goal was to give back in a way that led to economic change in the lives of the people of Rwanda.

Evidence ten years later is a vertically integrated coffee company that impacts over one million members of smallholder farming households in more than 20 different coffee growing countries worldwide. Prior to co-founding Westrock, Scott served as President and CEO of Alltel Corporation. 

Scott began his professional career as an investment banker and subsequently served as the Assistant to the Chairman at Stephens Group where his work involved traditional investment banking services, equity portfolio management, venture capital investing, and acquisitions in the media industry. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of AT&T Inc.

Joe Ford co-founded Westrock Coffee Company with his son, Scott, with the goal of creating a positive impact in the lives of people throughout the coffee supply chain and providing the very best customer service. Joe has played a key role in the development of Westrock as a vertically integrated coffee company that now supports over one million members of smallholder farming households.

Joe also serves as Chairman of Westrock Group, LLC. He began his career in telecommunications at Allied Telephone Company in Little Rock, becoming Allied’s President in 1977 and subsequently the Chairman of Alltel Corporation - a provider of wireless voice and data communications services. Joe serves on the Board of Directors of Westrock Coffee Company and Westrock Asset Management. He previously served on the Board of Directors for the Dial Corporation, Duke Energy Company, Eltek, ASA, Beverly Enterprises Company, En Pro Industries, Textron Inc., and the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Chris Pledger serves as Chief Financial Officer at Westrock Coffee Company, overseeing all finance, accounting, tax, and corporate development functions for the company worldwide. He also leads the global expansion of the company’s trading and export operations.

Prior to joining Westrock Coffee in 2013, Chris served as the company’s outside legal counsel as a partner at Kutak Rock LLP. He has also served as a legal, international business, and finance executive at Hunt Oil Company. Chris began his career as a corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions attorney at Thompson & Knight LLP and Vinson & Elkins LLP. Chris serves on the Board of Directors of Falcon Coffees Limited and Rwanda Trading Company.

Will Ford serves as Group President of Operations at Westrock Coffee Company. Since starting with the company in 2016, Will has worked in several of Westrock Coffee's entities around the world focusing on multiple aspects of the coffee trade. Currently, Will oversees global production, operations, and distribution logistics for Westrock Coffee where he is responsible for over one million square feet of operational space across eight facilities. In 2021, Will oversaw the construction of Westrock Coffee’s first international manufacturing facility in Johor Bahru, Malaysia and is currently responsible for the construction of the nation’s largest roasting to ready-to-drink facility. Among Will’s core skills are reviewing and improving efficiencies in order to help the company deliver complex beverage solutions at a global scale in multiple formats.

Will earned a master's degree in Coffee Economics and Science from Illy Universtatá del Caffé in Trieste, Italy. He received his B.A. in Communications from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Will serves on the boards of the National Coffee Association (NCA) and the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.

Sam Ford serves as Executive Vice President of Business Analytics and Client Services at Westrock Coffee. In this role, he is responsible for leading teams across pricing, corporate marketing, business processes, service and equipment, and customer engagement. Sam has worked for Westrock Coffee since 2014 in many different capacities.

Prior to Westrock Coffee, Sam worked at Circumference Group, a privately held investment and technology firm. Sam received a bachelor of finance from Pepperdine University and studied Mandarin in Shanghai, China.

Kyle Newkirk serves as Executive Vice President of Global Innovation, Marketing, and Sales, overseeing Westrock's customer-focused insights to new products pipeline, sales to consumer-packaged goods customers, and international business development.

Prior to joining Westrock Coffee in 2012, Kyle held leadership roles in innovation, global supply chain, and sustainability at several Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods companies including The Hershey Company, General Mills, Sara Lee, and Tyson Foods. He also served as a career Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development with postings in Washington D.C., Kabul, and Bangkok where he managed post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction projects.

Elizabeth currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Sales for Westrock Coffee Company where she oversees the development of new product portfolios and relationships for the largest retail chains in the world. Over the last several years, Elizabeth served as Westrock Coffee’s Group President of Sales, Marketing, and Client Services. Elizabeth was instrumental in building the company’s retail and private label manufacturing business, as well as leading the company’s sustainability initiatives, product development, and quality assurance programs.

Prior to joining Westrock Coffee, Elizabeth owned and served as Chief Operating Officer of SIR Research, a consumer marketing research firm in Richmond, Virginia. She previously worked as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at PBM Products, a private label consumer products company. She began her career in 1996 at Alltel Corporation.

Prior to joining Westrock Coffee, Bob served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary for Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. He has held senior leadership legal and human resources roles at several publicly-held, multi-national manufacturing companies, and has a broad range of corporate, securities, commercial and transactional experience. Bob helped to build the legal functions for the successful spin-off of two publicly-held companies. Prior to moving to an in-house legal role, Bob was an associate at Smith,Helms, Mulliss & Moore. He earned his law degree at Vanderbilt University and an MBA at Queens University.

Blake Schuhmacher has served as Chief Accounting Officer of Westrock since May 2021. Mr. Schuhmacher also serves as Chief Accounting Officer of several of Westrock’s subsidiaries, including Westrock Coffee Company, LLC, Westrock Coffee Roasting, LLC, S. & D. Coffee, Inc., and Westrock Beverage Company. Previously, Mr. Schuhmacher served as Chief Accounting Officer of Uniti Group Inc., a real estate investment trust, from October 2014 through May 2021. Prior to that, Mr. Schuhmacher served as Senior Manager — Financial Planning and Analysis at Wright Medical Technology, an orthopedic medical device company, from May 2012 through October 2014. Mr. Schuhmacher began his career in the assurance practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and subsequently joined Ernst & Young LLP, where he served as Senior Manager, Assurance at the time of his departure in May 2012. Mr. Schuhmacher is a licensed CPA in the state of Tennessee and holds a B.A. in Business Administration and a M.S. in Accounting from Rhodes College.

C.J. Duvall, Jr. serves as the Executive Vice President of Human Resources for Westrock Coffee Company. C.J. has long been associated with serving community efforts across a wide spectrum of interests, from local community gardening in support of teaching students in the field of biological sciences to creating scholarship endowments to prepare students to be teachers, scientists, business leaders, and humanitarian leaders all with a focus of giving back to their community.

Prior to joining Westrock Coffee, he served as a human capital business consultant to CEOs in different industries. C.J.'s corporate background includes more than 25-years human resource management for companies such as software services company, Systematics, Inc., Alltel Information Services, Inc., and Alltel Corporation.

Matt Smith serves as an Executive Vice President of Supply Chain & Sustainability at Westrock Coffee Company where he focuses on the areas of sustainability and commodity procurement and quality assurance. In this role he has responsibility for delivering on our goal of 100% responsibly sourced coffee and tea by 2025, while continuing to feed our facilities based in the U.S. and Malaysia with ~150m pounds of green coffee and ~25m pounds of tea annually.

Prior to returning to work in our U.S. operations, Matt was the President and CEO of Westrock East Africa, Chief Operating Officer of Falcon Coffees Limited. He began is time within the Westrock Coffee family as the General Manager of Rwanda Trading Company where he oversaw its growth from a start-up coffee exporter to a respected national player that is responsible for an incremental $100 million earned by the farmers of Rwanda.

Eric Chin serves as the Chief Information Officer of Westrock Coffee Company. Eric oversees the information technology needs and helps to enable the business to effectively and proactively serve customers through the use of technology. Eric started his career in operations and logistics and has previously worked in the food and grocery, beverage distribution, sporting goods, and retail industries.

Eric has held various roles throughout his career including Chief Operating Officer at Mack’s Prairie Wings, Division Vice President at McLane Company, and State Operations Director at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits. Eric earned a master’s degree in Leadership from Baker College and received his BBA from Harding University in Searcy, AR.