Unilever Plc 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 percent 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 Wednesday 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 Co.
“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 has been seeking to focus on higher growth divisions and has been selling under-performing brands. The board pushed out Schumacher, who was CEO for less than two years, because it was unsatisfied with the pace of change.
Since taking over, Fernandez has been looking at the company’s operations. Unilever’s top 200 managers are being benchmarked against the market, with 25 percent of them expected to be “refreshed,” he told the conference.
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.
By Sabah Meddings
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