Mars ANZ has announced two significant additions to its commercial and category leadership team, appointing Rita McComb as Channel Development Director, Corporate Grocery and Mitch Maiers as Strategy & Category Operations Director, Pet Nutrition ANZ.

Together, these appointments represent a major investment in strengthening customer partnership, commercial excellence and category growth capability across Mars in the region.

Ms McComb joins Mars with more than 15 years of FMCG experience at Procter & Gamble, where she held senior sales leadership roles across Coles, Independent Grocery, Pharmacy and Electrical. She is widely recognised for her commercial acumen, customer‑first mindset and ability to build high performing teams. In her new role, Ms McComb will partner closely with our key grocery customers to shape long term growth strategies for the channel, strengthen category leadership and deliver outstanding operational reliability and execution.

Mr Maiers joins the ANZ business from Mars Pet Nutrition North America, where he most recently served as Category Director, Walmart. With deep experience across FMCG, including category strategy, insights, digital acceleration and customer development, Mr Maiers brings a global perspective to category leadership. In his new role, he will lead Mars Pet Nutrition’s category growth strategy across in‑store and online channels, working side‑by‑side with customers to elevate category performance, strengthen execution excellence and deliver shared value creation for shoppers.

Mars Petcare ANZ Managing Director and General Manager Melodie Nye said the exciting appointments reflect the business’s commitment to bringing new capability and talent as Mars Pet Nutrition embarks on its next phase of growth.

“Rita and Mitch bring exceptional capability and a customer first mindset which will be instrumental in helping us create greater value for our partners and the pet parents we serve,” said Ms Nye.

“Their leadership strengthens our ability to partner closely with retailers and reinforces our ambition to lead the petfood category by responding to the changing needs of pet parents with real, insight-led value.”