Gordon Food Service is the largest family-operated broadline food distribution company in North America with an estimated $11.7 billion in annual sales. The company was founded in 1897 by Isaac van Westenbrugge, a 23-year-old Dutch immigrant, and later expanded by his son-in-law Ben Gordon. The company today supplies restaurants and cafeterias across the US and Canada, and operates a growing chain of stores.
Gordon Food Service recently announced the appointment of Kara Gordon Warren to the company’s Board of Directors, effective October 2016. Kara will be the first fifth-generation member of the Gordon family to join the board. She is currently the assistant general manager for the company’s Florida division and will become the division’s general manager in April 2017.
Kara attended Taylor University and worked outside the family business at a Chicago publishing company after graduation. She began her career at Gordon Food Service in 2003 as a sales representative, first in Chicago and then in Grand Rapids, Mich. She joined the company’s category management team in 2007. She was named director of ebusiness in 2011, director of business transformation in 2013 and marketing director for the Great Lakes division in 2014.
Source: Family Business Magazine