KANSAS CITY — Blake Day, president of Shick Esteve North America, has been promoted to chief executive officer of both the Kansas City, Mo., and Rians, France, facilities, effective immediately.

“Since 2015, Blake has invested in the people, processes and products of Shick Esteve,” said Tim Cook, president and CEO of Linxis Group, the parent company of Shick Esteve based in Nantes, France. “His exceptional leadership and significant industry experience will continue to strengthen the success of the company at the global level.”

In 2015, Mr. Day joined the company as chief financial officer. He took on the role of executive vice president in 2018, and this year, Mr. Day was promoted to president of Shick Esteve North America. In that role, he took over the day-to-day operations and focused on the company’s strategic business initiatives. Shick Esteve’s business model aims to create ingredient automation solutions for the food and beverage manufacturing industry.

As president and CEO, Mr. Day will not only be managing both facilities in the United States and France, but he will be working with leadership on the company’s continuous improvement initiatives. Mr. Day will draw on his financial and operations experience that includes serving as CFO of Marlen International and vice president of finance for Premium Standard Farms Inc. He has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from William Jewell College.