Lawrence Kurzius

Lawrence Kurzius

Chairman and CEO
McCormick & Co.

Lawrence Kurzius joined McCormick & Company in 2003 and held a variety of executive management positions before eventually becoming chairman, president and CEO in 2017.

But his work history suggests that he might have been destined from an early age to run a major food company such as McCormick’s. He sold garden seeds as a child in Huntsville, Alabama, and later worked for the Quaker Oats Company, Mars Inc.’s Uncle Ben’s Company.

He started at McCormick when McCormick acquired Zatarain’s, a food and spice company based in New Orleans, where Kurzius worked as president and CEO. More than that, Kurzius has always wanted to work in the business field.

“I cannot imagine doing anything other than building a great business and developing great leaders,” he said.

“From an early age, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset and worked in both small and large businesses, ranging from a pizza delivery service and a buttons and T-shirt business during my time at Princeton, to later leading Zatarain’s, and now McCormick and Co. “The principles are remarkably similar, it’s the scale that’s different.”

Kurzius graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Science in Economics.

He serves on the board of directors of Elanco Animal Health, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, National Association of Manufacturers, the Greater Baltimore Committee, the National Sporting Library & Museum and is a trustee of Jacksonville University.

“We take the science of flavor very seriously,” he said of McCormick in a 2019 interview. “The whole industry looks to us to provide insight into what’s next.”