Sonoco Names Pignone to Head Global Industrial Manufacturing


Hartsville, S.C. - Sonoco (NYSE: SON), one of the largest diversified global packaging companies, today announced that Marty F. Pignone has been named vice president, Global Manufacturing, Industrial, according to Jack Sanders, executive vice president, Industrial.

In this new position, Pignone, 51, will have global responsibility for managing a functional team of manufacturing leaders across Sonoco's Industrial businesses to further improve quality, responsiveness and productivity by driving common processes, best practices and leveraging resources. He reports to Sanders. Sonoco's global industrial sector businesses include tubes and cores, paper, wire and cable reels, protective packaging, paperboard specialties and recycling. The combined industrial businesses operate 235 plants in North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Australia.

"Marty is a proven leader who has demonstrated throughout his career an ability to improve manufacturing performance in a variety of international industrial businesses," said Sanders. "Improving the leverage of our industrial manufacturing operations is crucial for Sonoco as we continue work to improve quality, responsiveness and productivity. In addition, this change will allow the general managers of our industrial businesses to spend more time on pursuing growth opportunities."

Prior to this appointment, Pignone was vice president of Sonoco's North America Paper operations. He joined the Company in 1997 as manager of productivity improvement and was subsequently promoted to director, manufacturing, Paper, before being promoted in 2000 to his most recent position.

Pignone was graduated in 1978 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a BS degree in mechanical engineering and received a MS degree in business administration from Stanford University in 1991. Prior to joining Sonoco he worked for General Electric and Kodak.

About Sonoco
Founded in 1899, Sonoco is a $4.0 billion global manufacturer of industrial and consumer products and provider of packaging services, with approximately 335 operations in 35 countries, serving customers in some 85 nations. For more information on the Company, visit our Web site at http://sonoco.com/.

Please contact Roger Schrum,
+843/339-6018, with questions.

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