Nestle and Unilever Appoint New Finance Chiefs
As inflation continues to pressure the consumer-goods industry, both companies’ new CFOs will need to stem the erosion of market share without reducing profitability by spending too much on advertising or new products.
Nestlé SA and Unilever Plc are replacing their veteran CFOs, part of a changing of the guard at consumer-goods companies as inflation pressures the industry.
Anna Manz, the finance boss of the London Stock Exchange Group, will take over from Nestlé CFO François-Xavier Roger when she leaves her current role.
Unilever’s Graeme Pitkethly plans to retire by the end of May next year. The 56-year-old finance executive will be working with a new CEO starting in July as Royal FrieslandCampina’s Hein Schumacher takes over from Alan Jope.
Others in the industry, like Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc and Carlsberg A/S, are also hiring new bosses. The changes come as the industry grapples with a cost-of-living crisis that’s forcing shoppers to tighten their belts and trade down to unbranded products.
The new managers will need to stem the erosion of market share without spending too much on advertising or new products, threatening profitability.
Manz, 50, will be the most senior woman in the company and the group’s second female finance boss after Wan Ling Martello, who held the position before Roger. Last week, the group picked Stephanie Pullings Hart as its next head of operations.
Roger and Pitkethly took on their finance roles just months apart in 2015. During their tenures, both consumer-goods makers doubled shareholders’ money when including reinvested dividends.
Roger, 61, helped steer Nestlé during a period of impressive growth, even as the pandemic caused supply shortages, disruption, and uneven demand in recent years. After handing over to Manz, he will “pursue new professional challenges,” Nestlé said without elaborating.
“We are disappointed to see Roger go, as he has built, to our eyes, an effective partnership with Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider,” a Jefferies analyst wrote in a note. The stock was down 3.3 percent in Swiss trading.
Roger helped manage more than 100 deals, including the sale of Nestlé’s dermatology business, the purchase of licenses to sell coffee products under the Starbucks brand and the divestment of part of the company’s stake in L’Oréal SA.
The last years of Pitkethly’s 21-year stint at Unilever have been more chaotic. To rebuff a takeover by Kraft Heinz Co. in 2017, the company committed to a margin improvement, aggressively cutting costs and harming its brands. Then it failed on its first attempt to unify its corporate structure in 2018, and last year Unilever made a doomed and much-criticized attempt to buy the consumer-health arm of UK drugmaker GSK Plc.
Despite investor frustration, much of Unilever’s top brass has remained the same, so a broader overhaul is expected after Schumacher starts as CEO.
“We have been concerned about the culture of Unilever for several years, and we believe a completely new management team is a good chance for a fresh start,” an RBC analyst said in a note.
—With assistance from Thomas Mulier.
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