In a development that’s startled analysts and serves as a reminder that shorter tenures apply to CEOs and CMOs alike, consumer products giant Unilever announced that its chief executive will step down after a tenure of 1 year and 10 months.
Hein Schumacher will leave the CEO’s office on May 31st, to be replaced by Unilever veteran Fernando Fernandez, who most recently served as finance chief.
Fernandez has spent his entire career at Unilever, joining the company in 1987 as an analyst of production costs in Argentina, then working his way up through a range of titles including VP of hair care for Europe, SVP in the Philippines and, most recently, CFO, a post he assumed in January of 2024.
“On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Hein for resetting Unilever’s strategy, for the focus and discipline he has brought to the company and for the solid financial progress delivered during 2024,” chairman Ian Meakins said in a prepared statement that also nodded to Schumacher’s “decisive and results-oriented approach.”
But Meakins added that “there is much further to go to deliver best-in-class results.”
Schumacher’s departure appears to have been largely unforeseen, especially in light of recent filings that pointed to his apparent progress in the role. Schumacher moved into the corner office on July 1, 2023, taking over from Alan Jope, who retired in the wake of a failed attempt to acquire GSK’s consumer healthcare division.
Jope had also come under fire from Fundsmith Equity Fund founder Terry Smith, who called Unilever’s focus on sustainability “ludicrous” and blasted the importance it placed on brand purpose. “A company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann’s mayonnaise has… clearly lost the plot,” Smith said in 2022.
Schumacher’s remit was to change Unilever’s course and also address a number of challenges that dated back to the pandemic and the start of the war in Ukraine, including inflation, supply-chain issues and rising costs for commodities like diary and cocoa. (The company’s portfolio of brands includes Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s.)
By outward indications, Schumacher appeared to be doing just that. Unilever’s year-end 2024 filings showed sales up 4.2% over 2023 with a volume growth of 2.9%. Margins and cash flow improved as well. Schumacher had also embarked on a cost-cutting initiative and an organizational focus on Unilever’s “power brands,” including Vaseline, Knorr and Dove, a group that accounts for some 75% of company sales.
