Unilever Plc chief executive officer Hein Schumacher is stepping down in a surprise move after less than two years in charge of the consumer goods business.
The Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream said he will be replaced by Fernando Fernandez, who is currently chief financial officer and before that held roles including heading its Latin American division and its beauty and wellbeing unit, one of the company’s fastest-growing businesses.
Schumacher took over from Alan Jope in July 2023, at a time when investor confidence in the group was low. The Dutch executive kicked off a shakeup that includes plans to spin off its ice-cream business and cut costs.
Schumacher has tried to shift away from price-led growth where possible after a period of high inflation, focusing on expanding the volume of products sold. His efforts have been challenged by weak consumer sentiment in China and the US — key markets for the maker of Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr stock cubes.
The former boss of dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina has also watered down Unilever’s “purpose” agenda. Jope and his predecessor, Paul Polman, had argued that household products espousing a social mission — such as empowering body confidence or promoting hygiene — perform better than those without. It was an approach derided by some investors, who wanted to see more sales growth.
Shares of Unilever fell 3 percent in early trading in London on Tuesday. They’ve risen 6 percent during Schumacher’s tenure.
The CEO change will take effect in March, with Schumacher leaving the company on May 31. Unilever chairman Ian Meakins said the decision for the CEO to leave was mutual and hailed Fernandez’s “decisive and results-oriented approach and his ability to drive change at speed.”
Fernandez joined Unilever in 1988 and has overseen some of the company’s best performing markets. He was chief of the Brazil and Philippines markets for a time and president of the Latin America division. Meakins said Fernandez has a strong background and a “profound knowledge of Unilever’s operations.”
“While the board is pleased with Unilever’s performance in 2024, there is much further to go to deliver best-in-class results,” Meakins said, hinting that the board is looking to push Unilever’s transformation program even faster.
Unilever’s decision to appoint a company lifer echoes a similar move at rival Nestle SA, which ousted CEO Mark Schneider last year and replaced him with Laurent Freixe, who has been with the Swiss food company for nearly four decades.
Fernandez will be taking over at a time when Unilever is in the midst of spinning off its ice-cream arm. Earlier this month Unilever said it will list the unit primarily in Amsterdam, with London and New York getting secondary listings when the business is spun off this year. It also reported a 4 percent increase in group underlying sales in the fourth quarter, narrowly beating guidance, and said profit should improve modestly in 2025.
The company said there is no change to guidance for 2025.
“We met with Hein just over a week ago, and he seemed to us to be very much his normal ebullient self. We certainly didn’t see this coming,” said James Edwardes Jones, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, who added that he was “gobsmacked.”
By Deirdre Hipwell
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