Avera to Retire After 33 Years in Bread Business
Stephen Avera, chief legal counsel at Thomasville, Georgia-based Flowers Foods Inc., is retiring at the end of the year after more than three decades at some iteration of the packaged baked goods company.
May 29, 2019 at 04:13 PM
2 minute read
Stephen Avera, general counsel with Flowers Foods Inc. Courtesy photo.
The top lawyer at Flowers Foods Inc. will soon retire after more than three decades at some iteration of the Thomasville, Georgia-based packaged baked goods company.
Chief legal counsel Stephen Avera will retire from his role at the end of the year, the company announced. Stephanie Tillman, Flowers' vice president, chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel, will succeed Avera, effective Jan. 1.
Through a company representative, Avera declined to comment on his retirement, given that it is still several months away. Tillman was out of the office on Wednesday and could not immediately be reached for comment about her upcoming promotion.
Avera has been with Flowers, whose top brands include Nature's Own and Wonder, since 1986. Up until 1998, he was associate GC and assistant GC at Flowers Industries. He then served as VP and GC at Flowers Bakeries from 1998 to 2002. Following that, he held in-house roles of increasing responsibility at Flowers Foods, culminating with his appointment as chief legal counsel in May 2017. His soon-to-be-successor Tillman has been with the company since 1995.
Avera's experience with acquisitions has grown along with the company. In 2008, he oversaw Flowers' two separate purchases of Holsum Bakery Inc. of Phoenix for $150 million and ButterKrust Bakery of Lakeland, Florida, for $90 million. And in 2013, he was there for the purchase of Hostess Brands for $355 million.
Before joining Flowers, Avera, a Tallahassee, Florida, native, spent four years, one in Korea and three in Germany, as a captain in the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps, according to a 2006 profile of him in Daily Report sister publication The National Law Journal.
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