HARTSVILLE, S.C. - Sonoco, one of the largest diversified global packaging companies, has elected Blythe J. McGarvie to its Board of Directors. Her election increases Sonoco's board to 13 members.

McGarvie is currently Senior Lecturer in the Accounting and Management unit at Harvard Business School where she teaches Financial Reporting and Control to MBA candidates, as well as in-field and executive education classes. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Accenture, Viacom, Wawa, Inc., and LKQ Corp., and previously served on the boards of The Travelers Companies, Inc., Pepsi Bottling Group and Lafarge North America.

Prior to joining Harvard, McGarvie served for 10 years as chief executive officer and founder of Leadership for International Finance, a global consulting firm specializing in leadership seminars for corporate and academic groups. During this period, she co-founded and served as Senior Fellow for Northwestern University's Kellogg Innovation Network and was a visiting leader at Shanghai-based CEIBS in 2011 and 2012. Prior to 2003, McGarvie was chief financial officer for BIC Group, a $2 billion publicly traded consumer goods company, based in Paris, France. Before joining BIC Group, McGarvie was chief financial officer for a Fortune 500 company, Hannaford Bros. Co., acquired in 1999 byDelhaize Group.

"We are so pleased to have someone with Blythe's background and experience joining our Board," said Harris E. DeLoach Jr., Executive Chairman of Sonoco's Board of Directors. "Blythe is uniquely qualified for this position given her financial expertise and tenure with some of the leading consumer products companies in the world. Her perspective on markets that we serve, combined with her distinguished service as a member of boards that we admire and respect, will prove to be invaluable to our organization as we strive to grow our company around the world and provide exceptional value to our shareholders."

Author of the best-selling book, Shaking the Globe, McGarvie is a Certified Public Accountant and earned an MBA from Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. She is also a member of numerous non-profit organizations, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago Board of Directors, The Chicago Network, NACD and Corporate Directors Group.