Graphic Packaging is adding a new human-resources leader at a time when workforce management is becoming closely tied to the company’s financial and operational reset.

The Atlanta-based consumer-packaging producer has appointed Tatiana Berardinelli as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, effective September 8.

Berardinelli will report directly to President and CEO Robbert Rietbroek and join Graphic Packaging’s Executive Leadership Team. She arrives from Multi-Color Corporation, where she served as chief human resources officer for a global label and packaging business employing more than 13,000 people.

The appointment could easily be treated as routine executive news.

But Graphic Packaging’s own description of the role points to something broader.

Rietbroek says Berardinelli will be expected to help strengthen the company’s performance culture, operational excellence, employee empowerment, productivity and execution metrics.

Those priorities closely mirror the language Graphic Packaging has been using with investors throughout 2026.

That makes the appointment less about replacing an HR executive and more about a larger question:

How does Graphic Packaging turn a strategic restructuring programme into everyday operating behaviour across more than 23,000 employees and more than 100 facilities?

Berardinelli Arrives During a Company-Wide Reset

Graphic Packaging entered 2026 under new leadership.

Rietbroek became president and CEO on January 1, succeeding Michael Doss after nearly a decade under the previous chief executive.

Within weeks, the company announced a comprehensive review of its:

organisation;

operating footprint;

cost structure;

and selected portfolio assets.

The review followed a difficult 2025.

Graphic Packaging reported full-year sales of approximately $8.6 billion, down from $8.8 billion in 2024.

Net income fell to $444 million from $658 million.

The company also entered 2026 after completing most of the spending on its massive new recycled-paperboard mill in Waco, Texas, with projected investment reaching approximately $1.67 billion.

The strategic priority therefore shifted.

After years of major capital deployment, management began emphasizing:

operational performance;

cash generation;

cost discipline;

portfolio simplification;

and returns from the assets already in place.

That is the environment Berardinelli is joining.

More Than 500 Roles Have Already Been Removed

Graphic Packaging’s 90-day business review produced tangible workforce consequences.

In May, the company disclosed that it had eliminated more than 500 roles, primarily salaried positions.

Those reductions came through a combination of employee separations and vacant positions that were removed rather than filled.

Graphic Packaging also said it was:

targeting $60 million in cost reductions;

simplifying its portfolio;

focusing resources on core markets and geographies;

selling non-core assets in Croatia;

and cancelling projects that would have required more than $200 million of capital over the following years.

Capital spending was projected at approximately $450 million for 2026, compared with $922 million in 2025.

That is a major change in operating posture.

The company is moving from a period dominated by investment and capacity transformation into one increasingly focused on extracting productivity and cash from the existing network.

In that context, the CHRO role becomes strategically more important.

Cost restructuring can be announced centrally.

Its execution happens through people.

“Performance Culture” Is Not Neutral Language

Executive appointment releases often contain broad language around talent development and employee engagement.

This announcement is noticeably more specific.

Rietbroek highlighted:

productivity;

clear execution metrics;

operational excellence;

employee empowerment;

and profitable growth.

Those words align closely with the company’s current investor message.

That does not mean Berardinelli has been hired simply to reduce headcount.

There is no evidence supporting that interpretation.

Her role covers the much broader HR organisation, including attracting, retaining and developing employees.

But it would also be difficult to separate the appointment from Graphic Packaging’s current transformation agenda.

A manufacturing company trying to improve profitability needs more than lower costs.

It needs operating standards to be implemented consistently across:

mills;

converting plants;

commercial teams;

supply chains;

engineering;

and corporate functions.

That requires decisions about:

accountability;

incentives;

management structure;

skills;

leadership development;

and how plant and business performance are measured.

Those are partly HR issues.

The Financial Pressure Is Real

The operating environment also helps explain why management is focusing so strongly on execution.

Graphic Packaging reported second-quarter 2026 net sales of $2.188 billion, down about 1% from the prior-year quarter.

More significantly, net income declined to $24 million from $104 million.

Adjusted EBITDA fell to $247 million from $336 million, a decline of about 26%.

For the first six months of 2026, operating income fell 72% to $114 million from $414 million.

Graphic Packaging attributed the pressure to a combination of lower pricing, weather effects, higher maintenance spending, production curtailments and inflation affecting labor, benefits, chemicals, energy, logistics, secondary fiber and purchased materials.

This is important context.

Graphic Packaging is not restructuring because sales have disappeared.

First-half sales were actually slightly higher year over year at $4.344 billion versus $4.324 billion.

Volumes increased.

Innovation sales also contributed growth.

The larger problem is turning those sales into acceptable profitability.

That makes productivity and operating discipline financially meaningful rather than simply management vocabulary.

Inflation Is Competing With the Cost Programme

By the second quarter, Graphic Packaging had increased its expected structural cost actions.

The company said those measures should produce approximately $85 million of in-year savings.

At the same time, it expected roughly $150 million of inflationary pressure during 2026.

That creates an uncomfortable equation.

Even substantial internal savings can be consumed by external cost inflation.

So management cannot depend on one restructuring action.

It needs recurring improvements in:

machine efficiency;

maintenance;

labor productivity;

procurement;

inventory;

pricing;

and production planning.

This is where a transformation programme can become difficult.

The first cost reductions may come from obvious organisational changes.

The next gains normally have to come from thousands of smaller operating decisions.

That requires different behaviour across the company.

And behaviour is much harder to restructure than an organisation chart.

HR Becomes Part of Operational Excellence

For paper and packaging companies, human resources is sometimes viewed mainly through recruitment, compensation and labor relations.

Modern manufacturing makes the connection with operations much tighter.

A paperboard mill cannot improve productivity sustainably if it lacks skilled operators and maintenance personnel.

A converting plant cannot increase throughput if supervisors are not trained to interpret downtime data.

A new piece of automation will not deliver its expected return if operators bypass it or the maintenance organisation cannot support it.

A corporate restructuring may remove management layers, but the remaining organisation needs clear authority to make decisions.

This makes HR increasingly relevant to manufacturing performance.

The challenge becomes:

Do employees understand which operating metrics matter, have the skills to influence them, and have enough authority to respond when performance moves in the wrong direction?

That is very different from treating culture as an employee-survey score.

Berardinelli’s Industrial Background Is Relevant

Graphic Packaging specifically emphasizes Berardinelli’s 25 years of global HR leadership across:

packaging;

specialty chemicals;

coatings;

and advanced materials.

Before Multi-Color Corporation, she was chief human resources officer at Clariant.

Earlier roles included positions at PPG Industries, Eastman Chemical, Dow Chemical and Rohm and Haas.

That background matters because these are capital-intensive industrial organisations rather than purely office-based businesses.

Manufacturing HR has to work across very different employee populations.

A global packaging company may include:

continuous-process mill operators;

maintenance technicians;

warehouse employees;

print and converting operators;

engineers;

commercial teams;

corporate functions;

and unionised workforces depending on geography.

The performance system that works for a corporate finance team will not necessarily work on a paperboard machine.

A credible global HR strategy therefore needs enough standardisation to align the organisation while still recognising operational differences between plants and countries.

Graphic Packaging Is Separating HR From the Interim Transformation Role

Before Berardinelli’s appointment, Graphic Packaging listed Karel van der Mandele as Chief Transformation Officer and Interim Chief Human Resources Officer.

Van der Mandele joined the company in January 2026 with responsibility for strategic transformation, planning and business development.

The permanent CHRO appointment therefore has an organisational implication.

Graphic Packaging can now place a dedicated executive over HR while its transformation function continues to focus on the broader strategic reset.

That separation makes sense as the transformation moves from initial review into execution.

A transformation office can identify where costs and structures need to change.

A permanent HR organisation then has to embed those changes into:

roles;

leadership;

incentives;

succession;

workforce planning;

and performance management.

The two functions remain connected.

They no longer have to be led by the same executive.

Waco Changes the Workforce Equation Too

The company’s new Waco recycled-paperboard mill provides another layer of context.

Graphic Packaging spent heavily to create a modern asset intended to support its longer-term paperboard strategy.

By the end of 2025, approximately $1.58 billion of the projected $1.67 billion project cost had already been spent, and the project was substantially complete.

Once a major mill transitions from construction and commissioning into normal operations, the management challenge changes.

The question is no longer:

Can we build it?

It becomes:

Can we run it consistently at the cost, quality and productivity levels assumed in the investment case?

Modern assets can reduce labor intensity and improve efficiency.

But only if:

operators are trained;

maintenance systems are disciplined;

production routines stabilize;

and the organisation captures the technical capabilities built into the equipment.

This is another reason the people side of Graphic Packaging’s transformation deserves attention.

The company has invested heavily in physical assets.

Now it needs performance from those assets.

Workforce Cuts and Talent Retention Can Pull in Opposite Directions

Graphic Packaging’s current situation also creates a common restructuring tension.

Management wants lower organizational cost.

At the same time, it needs to retain critical technical knowledge.

Paperboard and packaging manufacturing depend heavily on experience.

A maintenance engineer who understands recurring machine failures can carry knowledge not fully captured in a database.

A press operator may understand how a particular substrate behaves during seasonal humidity changes.

A scheduler may know why one production sequence works better than another even when the ERP system suggests a different order.

When a company removes hundreds of roles, it therefore has to distinguish between:

organizational duplication

and

capability the operation cannot afford to lose.

That is one of the harder jobs of a transformation-focused HR function.

Cutting payroll is measurable immediately.

The cost of losing technical capability may emerge months later through downtime, quality problems or slower problem solving.

Productivity Cannot Be Measured Through Headcount Alone

The word “productivity” can also become misleading if reduced to employees per tonne or employees per dollar of sales.

Manufacturing productivity is multidimensional.

A mill that reduces labor but suffers additional downtime may not have improved productivity.

A carton plant that cuts planning staff but creates longer changeovers may simply move cost from the office to the machine.

A smaller maintenance organisation can look efficient until equipment reliability declines.

That means Graphic Packaging’s reference to clear execution metrics may be one of the more important parts of the appointment announcement.

The right metrics have to show whether changes improve the system rather than one departmental budget.

For a paper or packaging plant, that can include combinations of:

throughput;

waste;

downtime;

quality;

maintenance cost;

on-time delivery;

inventory;

safety;

and customer service.

The company has not publicly disclosed which employee performance metrics Berardinelli will introduce or change.

That should therefore remain an open question rather than an assumed programme.

Culture Will Be Tested by the Cost Programme

Graphic Packaging’s announcement also uses the phrase “employee empowerment.”

That is easy to write.

It is harder to maintain during restructuring.

Employees who have watched colleagues leave may become more cautious rather than more empowered.

Managers can become reluctant to take risks if cost targets dominate every discussion.

Maintenance teams may defer work to protect budgets.

Operations teams may protect local performance metrics rather than optimise the network.

A successful transformation therefore needs to balance cost control with enough organisational trust for employees to identify problems early.

That is especially important in industrial operations.

Problems that are hidden because employees fear missing a metric can eventually become much more expensive than the original variance.

The test of a performance culture is therefore not simply whether targets become tougher.

It is whether responsibility becomes clearer without suppressing the information management needs to make good decisions.

2026 Is Becoming an Execution Year

The sequence of Graphic Packaging’s announcements makes the strategic shift increasingly visible.

A new CEO arrived in January.

A comprehensive operating review followed.

More than 500 roles were removed.

Non-core assets were targeted for disposal.

More than $200 million in planned capital was cancelled.

2026 capital spending was cut sharply from 2025 levels.

Structural savings were increased to approximately $85 million.

And now a permanent CHRO with industrial-transformation experience is joining the executive team.

Taken together, those steps suggest that 2026 is becoming less about building the next major asset and more about making the current portfolio perform better.

That does not guarantee the strategy will work.

Graphic Packaging still faces inflationary pressure, competitive pricing and weaker profitability.

But it establishes a clearer benchmark for evaluating management.

The Next Results Should Be Read Through the Transformation Lens

Investors and industry competitors should watch whether the operating changes begin to appear in the financial statements.

The key question is not whether Graphic Packaging announces another cost programme.

It is whether existing actions translate into better economics.

Watch the relationship between:

sales volumes;

adjusted EBITDA margins;

structural savings;

maintenance expense;

working capital;

cash flow;

and capital spending.

In the second quarter, management said productivity initiatives and cost discipline contributed to a 50-basis-point sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin from the first quarter, despite elevated inflation.

That is an early indicator.

It is not yet proof of a completed turnaround.

Year-over-year adjusted EBITDA remained substantially lower.

What Should Packaging Executives Watch in This Appointment?

For the packaging industry, the Berardinelli appointment is useful because it shows where large manufacturers increasingly see the boundary between HR and operations.

It is disappearing.

Workforce strategy is becoming part of:

capital productivity;

automation;

cost competitiveness;

plant reliability;

and execution.

The next evidence to watch will not come from another executive biography.

It will come from operating results.

Does Graphic Packaging continue to reduce cost without damaging service?

Do productivity improvements outpace inflation?

Does the company generate more cash from its large asset base?

Does Waco stabilize?

And can management create a leaner structure while retaining the technical capability required to run mills and converting plants reliably?

Those outcomes will tell us whether the company’s “performance culture” is becoming an operational system or remaining executive language.

The Important Metric Is Not How Many Roles Graphic Packaging Cuts

Graphic Packaging has already demonstrated that it is willing to reduce organisational cost.

More than 500 roles have been removed.

The harder phase comes next.

A packaging company cannot cost-cut its way indefinitely to profitable growth.

Eventually, the remaining organisation has to produce more value from the assets, people and capital that remain.

That makes Berardinelli’s September 8 arrival particularly well timed.

Her real test will not be the size of the HR organisation.

It will be whether Graphic Packaging can connect:

people → accountability → operational performance → cash flow.

For paper and packaging companies undertaking their own transformations, there is a useful question here.

After completing your latest restructuring, do you know which operating capabilities became stronger—and which ones quietly disappeared with the headcount?

If the answer is unclear, the cost saving may be easier to measure than the long-term effect.

Graphic Packaging’s new CHRO joins after the first major organisational cuts have already been made.

The next phase is proving that a leaner company can also become a better-running one.

Last Updated on 07/09/2026 by Jota Machinery