Unilever announces management cuts as part of new organisational model

Unilever has announced changes to its organisational model to make it a simpler, more category-focused business, it says.

The company will move away from its current matrix structure and will be organised around five distinct Business Groups: Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care, Nutrition, and Ice Cream. Each Business Group will be fully responsible and accountable for their strategy, growth, and profit delivery globally.

Alan Jope, CEO Unilever, explains: “Our new organisational model has been developed over the last year and is designed to continue the step-up we are seeing in the performance of our business. Moving to five category-focused Business Groups will enable us to be more responsive to consumer and channel trends, with crystal-clear accountability for delivery. Growth remains our top priority and these changes will underpin our pursuit of this.”

To enable Unilever to benefit from its scale and global capabilities, the five Business Groups will be supported by Unilever Business Operations, which will provide the technology, systems, and processes to drive operational excellence across the business. A lean Unilever Corporate Centre will continue to set Unilever’s overall strategy.

As a result of the new set-up, Unilever is making changes to its leadership team, which includes the following appointments:

• Hanneke Faber, president, Foods & Refreshment, has been appointed president, Nutrition, which will be home to Scratch Cooking, Healthy Snacking, Functional Nutrition, Plant-Based Meat, and Food Solutions.
• Matt Close, EVP Ice Cream, has been appointed president, Ice Cream, a Business Group in its own right.

These appointments are effective from 1 April 2022.

In addition:

• Nitin Paranjpe, Chief Operating Officer (COO), will take on a new role as Chief Transformation Officer & chief people pfficer, leading the business transformation, and heading the HR function.
• Reginaldo Ecclissato, chief supply chain officer, will lead the Supply Chain and Unilever Business Operations as chief business operations officer.

The proposed new organisation model will result in a reduction in senior management roles of around 15% and more junior management roles by 5%, equivalent to around 1,500 roles globally. Changes will be subject to consultation. Unilever says it does not expect factory teams to be impacted by these changes.

All costs related to setting up the new organisation will be managed within existing restructuring investment plans.