Unilever has ousted its chief executive, Hein Schumacher, who has been little more than a year and a half at the helm, replacing him with its finance chief, Fernando Fernandez, to speed up the company’s turnaround plans.
In a surprise announcement, the maker of Knorr, Marmite, Dove and Ben & Jerry’s said Schumacher would step down on 1 March and leave the company on 31 May.
Fernandez, the company’s chief financial officer and a Unilever veteran, will take over as chief executive when Schumacher leaves. Before he became finance chief in January last year, he ran beauty and wellbeing, one of Unilever’s fastest-growing businesses.
He previously headed the Latin America, Brazil and Philippines divisions. An economist who studied at the University of Buenos Aires, he joined Unilever in 1988.
It is understood that the decision was made at a board meeting on Monday, with the board preferring Fernandez’s appetite to rapidly execute the next phase of the turnaround.
Unilever’s shareholders include the activist investor Nelson Peltz, who has a seat on the board. Investors have been becoming impatient with the pace of the recovery, as recent results showed a 5% drop in 2024 pre-tax profits and the company said it had made a slow start to 2025.
The Unilever chair, Ian Meakins, thanked Schumacher 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”. He pointed out that Schumacher pushed through a productivity programme and began the spin-off of the ice-cream business, both of which are fully on track.
But he said: “The growth action plan has put Unilever on a path to higher performance and the board is committed to accelerating its execution.”
He added: “The board has been impressed with Fernando’s decisive and results-oriented approach and his ability to drive change at speed … He has a strong track record of performance and portfolio management, a love of brands and a profound knowledge of Unilever’s operations.”
Schumacher said in an email after the news of his departure that the board had been “eager to step up the pace of our strategy execution and realise swift value creation underscored by a change in leadership”.
Unilever has chosen Amsterdam for the primary listing of the division, in the latest blow to the London stock market. It makes some of the world’s top-selling ice-cream brands, including Wall’s, Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s, as well as Cornetto, Viennetta, Carte d’Or and Breyers.
Chris Beckett, head of equity research at Quilter Cheviot, said: “Losing a chief executive after 18 months is never a good thing. For Unilever, especially during a strategy turnaround, it does not suggest things were going well behind the scenes or the business was firing on all cylinders.
Schumacher will receive his fixed pay of €1.85m (£1.53m) until 31 May and is in line for a payment in lieu for the remainder of his notice period. He will be treated as a “good leaver” regarding his outstanding incentives.
Fernandez said: “Our focus will be on building a future-fit portfolio with an attractive growth footprint and delivering unmatched functional and perceivable superiority across our top 30 power brands.”
He will receive fixed pay of €1.8m, slightly less than his predecessor, as well as an annual cash payouts and long-term share bonuses.
Srinivas Phatak, the Unilever deputy chief financial officer and group controller, will become acting chief financial officer until a permanent replacement is found.
Matt Britzman, a senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Markets typically flinch at abrupt leadership shifts but [Fernandez’s] deep experience, and a clear mandate to push change with urgency, signal a bold move to accelerate the final stretch of Unilever’s turnaround.
“With Fernandez poised to build on the groundwork already laid, this unexpected transition might be the spark that helps deliver a new version of Unilever that investors have long been waiting for.”
Unilever shares were at the bottom of the FTSE 100 index, falling as much as 3% in early trading, before paring losses to trade 2.1% lower.
