2025 Speakers

Marc Carena has led the regional Mars Wrigley and International Travel Retail businesses since February 2022, delivering three consecutive years of double-digit volume growth. The Europe + Central Eurasia region covers 55 countries, 800m consumers and over 8,000 Associates.

He joined from McDonald’s where he was first Corporate Vice President and Chief Alignment Officer for UK/Ireland, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Germany and France followed by Managing Director of McDonald’s Russia. In that role Marc led over 65,000 employees to deliver a turnover of $2bn. In this capacity he overhauled the unit’s commercial strategy, accelerated the restaurant expansion, relaunched the McCafé brand, launched a local mobile application and loyalty program, added the direct-to-consumer (DTC) delivery model and led the unit to become the fastest growing among McDonald’s top 20 markets.

Before joining McDonald’s, Marc held the position of Corporate Vice President and Customer Management Director (CMO) for Metro Cash & Carry Romania and oversaw Marketing for all Hypermarkets and Cash & Carry formats across South-East Europe. This was followed by Chief Executive Officer of Metro Cash & Carry Croatia as well as President of the Supervisory Board of the JV between Spar and Metro Cash & Carry Croatia. In this role he led the business’s successful turnaround and gained invaluable first-hand experience of the retail sector.

Prior to joining Metro Cash & Carry, Marc spent nine years at Nestlé.  He began his career in sales and marketing and among others also oversaw the KITKAT, BAR ONE and Milk Chocolate brands in India. During his Nestlé career Marc held increasingly senior positions in various countries, including Portugal, Germany and Poland, ultimately becoming the head of the Nestlé Professional’s South Europe region, in which he managed 14 countries and was part of the Nestlé Professional European Leadership Team.

Marc is married to Indira, and they have two children. In his spare time, Marc enjoys scuba diving, reading non-fiction history books, traveling and going to the theatre.