Unilever's newly appointed CEO Fernando Fernandez has instigated a review of 200 senior leadership positions amid turnaround efforts.
Speaking at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference in Boston, US on Wednesday (3 September), Fernandez said around 25% of roles at the company will be replaced to eradicate “pockets of mediocrity”.
The Dove and K18 owner has struggled with lagging sales and has cut 6,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2025 already amid restructuring.
Fernandez, formerly Unilever’s CFO, took the top job in March replacing Hein Schumacher who was only in the role for a-year-and-a-half.
Outlining turnaround efforts so far at the conference, Fernandez said that it has reduced its white collar workforce by 18 in the past 18 months.
Looking forward, he laid out seven “clear” priorities for the business.
“More beauty, more wellbeing, more personal care, more premium, more ecommerce, more US, more India,” he said.
“And our money is following these priorities.
“You can like it. You cannot like it, but we are very clear about what we want to do.
“These are the priorities we have in terms of our categories, our segments, our channels and our geographies.”
Unilever also has ambitions to increase its beauty and personal care business, Fernandez said, in particular in the premium arena.
“There is a fundamental transformation in the Unilever portfolio.” he continued.
“[Unilever’s] Beauty and Personal Care now are 51% of our revenue and our ambition is to make it two thirds of our revenue in the mid-term.
“We are increasing our exposure to premium.
“We have a portfolio with probably an excess of exposure to mainstream position and to value position.
“It is very clear what we are doing. We are acquiring premium, we are divesting value and this is changing the portfolio of Unilever.
“And we are fundamentally innovating in the premium segment to progressively increase our exposure to premium, because the profit pool of our categories is shifting up, in every single one of them.”
In terms of markets. Fernandez said the company is “making [the] US and India our centres of gravity going forward”.
In a question and answer season after his presentation, he added that he would “not deploy a single penny in M&A outside [the] US and outside India”.
Earlier this year, Unilever acquired the UK-founded personal care brand Wild.