British chief executives may not command the pay checks of football managers. But Unilever’s precipitous ousting of Hein Schumacher shows they can have equally short shelf lives.
Schumacher, only the second outsider to helm the consumer goods conglomerate since it ditched co-bosses, was in the throes of steering Unilever’s latest turnaround. Now, he will be out at the end of the week, replaced by chief financial officer Fernando Fernandez.
What works on the pitch is messier in the C-suite. Unilever has 128,000 staff spread across 190 countries and an unwieldy business that is being gradually pruned. Investors, including US activist Nelson Peltz, are losing patience with Unilever’s performance. Justifiably so: it lags behind peers such as the US’s Procter & Gamble on margins and sales growth.