Cone Head : Ben & Jerry’s Ends Its Unusual Search for New Chief Executive

Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., ending a seven-month search that included asking candidates to write essays on why they should get the job, on Wednesday hired a former beverage executive as its new president and chief executive.

The counterculture company, facing tougher competition and changing consumer tastes in its premium ice cream business, chose Robert Holland Jr. to replace company co-founder Ben Cohen as chief executive. Cohen will remain on the board of directors as chairman of the 17-year-old firm he started with longtime friend Jerry Greenfield, who oversees Ben & Jerry’s social and charitable operations. Holland will also replace Chuck Lacy, who is resigning as company president.

Holland won out in a highly publicized search that included posters that read “Yo! I want to be CEO!” and free ice cream for life for the second-place candidate. Holland was found through an executive search firm and did not enter the contest asking candidates to write a 100-word essay on why they should get the job.

But he did submit a poem titled “Time, Values and Ice Cream.” He will earn a minimum of $250,000 a year, with the possibility of a $125,000 bonus and $180,000 in stock options.

“Bob Holland is the board’s unanimous choice to be our new CEO,” Cohen said at a news conference at the firm’s headquarters in Waterbury, Vt. “We were very impressed, not only with Bob’s operational expertise, but with his social commitment.”

Holland, currently chairman of a family-owned business that buys troubled companies, will have to deal with numerous problems as the new chief executive. Ben & Jerry’s socially conscious image, for instance, has been tarnished by reports that its employees suffer from high on-the-job injury rates, which the company says are being reduced.

Ben & Jerry’s stock has also sunk in the face of plunging profit, slowing sales and delays in opening a highly automated ice cream factory. The company said last month that it expected to report its first quarterly loss ever after reporting a 70% drop in third-quarter earnings in August.

On Wednesday, Ben & Jerry’s stock fell 62.5 cents to $12.125 in Nasdaq trading.

The problems are in part related to increasingly health-conscious consumers who are cutting down on fatty products such as super premium ice cream. In addition, lower-priced competitors have stolen some of Ben & Jerry’s sales, industry analysts say.

“With people concerned in this country over fat, it’s hard to know what sort of future exists for high-butter-fat-content ice cream,” said Lewis H. Alton, managing partner of L.H. Alton & Co., a San Francisco-based investment banking firm.

From its home in a converted gas station in Burlington, Vt., Ben & Jerry’s grew into the nation’s largest purveyor of super premium ice cream, with about $140 million in annual sales in 1993 (the last year for which figures are available) and such wacky flavors as Cherry Garcia and Rain Forest Crunch.

The firm, which sold its first shares to the public in 1984, reflects the liberal social and political views of Cohen and Greenfield, ex-hippies who have been leaders in the socially responsible business movement. Company causes have included saving rain forests and aiding the homeless.

But increasing challenges forced Cohen and Greenfield to seek a professional manager for the CEO job.

In a ceremony at the company’s headquarters Wednesday, Cohen took off a hat shaped like a Ben & Jerry’s pint and placed it on Holland’s head.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.

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The Scoop on Mr. Holland

Name: Robert Holland Jr.

Age: 54

Current job: Chairman of his own company, Rokher-J Inc., in White Plains, N.Y., which wages leveraged buyouts of service-oriented companies

Experience:

* CEO of City Marketing, a Detroit beverage distributor

* Consultant at McKinsey & Co.

* Chairman of Detroit-based Gilreath Manufacturing Inc., a custom plastic injection molding company

Other titles:

* Chairman of board of trustees of Spelman College in Atlanta

* Board member of Lincoln Center Theater in New York

* Trustee of Atlanta University Center

Education:

* MBA from Bernard Baruch Graduate School in New York City

* Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.

* Home: White Plains, N.Y.

Melting Profits

Declining sales have hurt profits at Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. Quarterly net income, in thousands:

Third quarter, 1994: $1,400

Source: Wire services