Wimm-Bill-Dann chair steps down
Tony Maher, CEO of Russian dairy giant Wimm-Bill-Dann, has announced he will be stepping down as head of the company. “The last five years as chief executive of Wimm-Bill-Dann have been some of the most exciting and satisfying of my career,” Maher says. “I am pleased that I have accomplished almost everything I set out to do when I joined the company. I was lucky to have had a rare professional opportunity to shape the future of one of Russia’s most advanced companies and have a strong influence on the overall development of the Russian consumer market.
Sergey Plastinin, chairman of the board of directors of Wimm-Bill-Dann, adds: “When he first joined us, our market cap was just over $1 billion (EUR740m) and less than five years later the company was valued at nearly $6 billion (EUR4.4bn). He streamlined the company, recruited top Russian and international management talent, concentrated resources on winning brands and opened up a whole new market segment with our Zdraivery umbrella brand for kids – all in a very short period of time and in the face of very challenging market conditions. He enhanced our leadership in dairy and baby food and led a brilliant recovery in our juice business.
“Throughout, he stuck to Wimm-Bill-Dann’s core principles of entrepreneurship, transparency and an open corporate culture and he will go down in history for leading Wimm-Bill-Dann to join PepsiCo in one of the most significant deals for modern Russia.”