Uniq has announced that there is no role for chief executive Bill Ronald following a five-month strategic review and the resulting new business strategy.
Ronald is leaving Uniq after three years on the mutual agreement that new leadership skills are required to drive the strategic changes.
Ronald, a former managing director of Mars Confectionery, has been chief executive since February 2002. He left Mars at the end of 2001 when its food and petcare businesses in the UK were merged to form the Masterfoods division of Mars UK.
Uniq chairman Nigel Stapleton will take a more active
role in the business as the search for Ronald’s successor gets underway.
Stapleton will work alongside three divisional managing directors and group finance director to guide the implementation of the strategy. Uniq is abandoning plans to integrate its three core businesses - UK, Germany and Benelux, and France - as it has found the differences too great. The focus is now on running the divisions as discrete businesses.
“The board is confident these businesses can deliver greater value to shareholders if the divisional management teams are more focused and we take the tough decisions needed to drive down cost and accelerate product innovation,” said Stapleton. “We are sorry to be parting company with Bill as a result of these decisions.”
Fiona McLelland