InBev UK & Ireland president Richard Evans has left after 14 years "to seek new challenges" and will be replaced by global director of customer standards Stuart McFarlane.

Evans was promoted from vice president of brands two years ago and replaced Colin Pedrick, who was in the job for less than a year. Evans' departure comes only a month after marketing director Devin Kelly left the company to return to his native US for personal reasons.

The series of departures has come as a blow to InBev, which has been struggling to reverse a decline in sales of its leading brand Stella Artois. Sales of La Famille Artois only grew 0.2% over Christmas, despite being backed by the 'Pass On Something Good' campaign.

The small sales uplift followed a period of heavy discounting for the brand - sales of which dropped 5.3% last year compared with 2006 [Nielsen].

McFarlane, who took up the presidency of InBev UK & Ireland this week, said he was relishing the challenge of boosting sales of InBev's beer brands. "I am looking forward to leading the InBev team into meeting the demands of what is a competitive UK marketplace," said MacFarlane.

"Our future sales strategy will benefit from the significant contribution that Evans has made to the business."

In his old job MacFarlane, was responsible for leading global customer relationships and developing sales capability.

He has previously held a variety of senior roles in the finance, sales and marketing divisions of the group and was responsible for launching Leffe and Brazilian brand Brahma into the UK off-trade.

Prior to joining InBev, MacFarlane managed the accounts department at Scottish & Newcastle.

Last month InBev promised to inject a "more overt corporate social responsibility element" into Stella Artois following a shock delisting from the Young's pub chain. Young's said the brand was no longer "premium enough".

InBev introduced the new premium oak-aged Eiken Artois to La Famille Artois this month.

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