Unilever CEO plans shakeup of top 200 managers in overhaul

[LONDON] Unilever chief executive officer Fernando Fernandez expects to replace a quarter of the group’s top 200 managers following a performance review, as he leads an overhaul of the maker of Dove soap.

Fernandez, who has led the consumer goods company since February, also said Unilever had reduced its white collar workforce by 18 per cent over the past 18 months as it tries to stamp out what he called “pockets of mediocrity.”

“Unilever has been an inconsistent performer,” Fernandez said on Wednesday (Sep 3) at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference in Boston. He described it as a “bloated organisation” with an inconsistent performance culture, adding it had been derailed ever since it foiled the 2017 takeover bid by Kraft Heinz.

“We lost our focus on volume growth,” he said.

Fernandez is pushing ahead with a broader restructuring plan announced by former CEO Hein Schumacher, which includes spinning off its ice cream business, which owns Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s, by November this year.

The company’s top 200 managers were being benchmarked against the market, with 25 per cent of them expected to be “refreshed,” he said.

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Unilever has previously said it would cut 7,500 office-based roles by 2026.

Fernandez also said he would not deploy any money on deals outside the US and India, which he views as growth engines. “India will be for Unilever what China has been for some of our competitors over the past decade,” he said. BLOOMBERG