Mindy Rich Elevated to Chairman of Rich Holdings
Melinda “Mindy” Rich has been tapped to chair the family-owned Rich Holdings, Inc. The Buffalo, N.Y.-based parent company of Rich Products Corp. has been led for the past 16 years by Robert E. Rich, Jr., who is moving into a senior chairman position.
As she steps into the chairman role vacated by her husband, Mindy will leverage her extensive experience at Rich Holdings, including her jobs as vice chairman, EVP, board members and EVP of innovation. She first joined the company in 1985 and spearheaded several business efforts, from product development to the establishment of best practices and processes. She has also created work/life programs at the organization and served in volunteer and leadership roles outside Rich Products, including stints as a board member for M&T Bank Corp., the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Rock & Roll, Inc./Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and business from the University of Colorado and received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree from The Culinary Institute of America and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from D’Youville College.
“This decision was made after years of very deliberate and careful planning,” Mindy said. “Intentional succession planning is a crucial part of fostering a robust leadership pipeline – especially in a family-led company like ours. We expect and demand that our senior leaders actively participate in this kind of forethought, and we hold ourselves accountable to the same expectations as stewards of Rich Products and our family of businesses.”
“Serving this company as chairman is one of the great honors of my life,” she continued. “I’ve had the privilege of being an integral part of Rich’s for nearly four decades and deeply admire and respect what we, as the Rich family, have built over the past 77 years. I have the utmost pride in what our family name stands for and an even deeper desire to preserve and protect what my predecessors worked so hard to establish.”
Added Robert: “We are steadfast in our commitment to remaining a private, family-owned company. This was a deep desire of our founder, my father, Robert E. Rich Sr. And, over the years, his aspiration morphed into an unwavering, family-wide directive that is as fundamental to our identity as a company as the delicious products we make.”
The company's current CEO is Richard Ferranti, who was promoted to that position in January 2020 from his prior role as company president.
