Jo Thys was appointed Chief Operations Officer of Barry Callebaut AG, effective January 1, 2023. He is a Member of the Executive Committee of Barry Callebaut AG since July, 2021.

Jo Thys started his career at Barry Callebaut as a graduate trainee in 1997. He then held several positions in Operations in Region EMEA before moving to the US in 2006 as Vice President Operations and Supply Chain for Region Americas. He returned to Europe in 2010, where he assumed the role of Vice President Operations and Supply Chain Global Cocoa. Jo Thys was appointed Vice President Cocoa Africa in September 2017 and had assumed additional responsibility for Africa, Middle East and Turkey in September 2020. In July 2021, Jo Thys became President Asia Pacific and member of the Group’s Executive Committee.

Thanks to his broad number of strategic roles across three continents, Jo Thys combines a profound knowledge of operations and supply chains with deep business insights and a strong belief in the business case for sustainability, as well as gender and cultural diversity.

Jo Thys holds an electromechanical engineering degree from Group T University College of Leuven, Belgium. In addition he studied at INSEAD and holds a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.