Consumer product behemoths Unilever and Nestlé announced the departures of their veteran chief financial officers, Graeme Pitkethly and François-Xavier Roger, respectively, on Tuesday. 

Graeme Pitkethly

Pitkethly is retiring from Unilever, whose products include everything from bath soap to ice cream, by the end of May 2024, after 21 years with the London-based company. Pitkethly will have spent nearly nine years as CFO — nearly twice as long as the average CFO tenure — after previously serving as SVP of global markets, group treasurer, and head of mergers and acquisitions.

Unilever said its board would proceed "with a formal internal and external search" for Pitkethly's successor in the head finance seat.

Nestlé, meanwhile, announced that Roger, executive vice president and CFO, had decided to step down and pursue new professional challenges. 

François-Xavier Roger

Roger also spent nearly eight years as CFO, coming over from Takeda Pharmaceuticals in 2015. Earlier, he was CFO of Millicom International Cellular and Danone Asia. 

Taking over the CFO chair at Nestlé will be Anna Manz, currently CFO and board member at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). "Manz will remain in her job and serve as a member of the LSEG board until May 2024 as part of her notice period," according to the LSEG.

François-Xavier Roger will remain in his CFO role until Manz's arrival, said Nestlé. Manz's planned exit from LSEG was announced last week. She has been finance chief since November 2020. Manz's prior stint in consumer goods was at beverage manufacturer Diageo, where she spent more than 15 years, the last three as group strategy director.

Anna Manz

Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider thanked Roger for his service. He said Manz's "deep knowledge of the consumer goods industry, combined with her extensive experience across many corporate functions, make her uniquely positioned to help lead Nestlé into its next phase of value creation."

While both global consumer goods firms reported higher sales in the first quarter, helped by price increases, their gross margins have suffered as sales volumes lag.

Unilever's Pitkethly said on the company's late April earnings call that he didn't expect "the route back to positive volumes to follow a straight line. This is about gross margin, stabilizing gross margin, and then repairing gross margin."

Unilever CEO Alan Jope is also leaving the company and is being replaced by Hein Schumacher, CEO of Dutch multinational dairy company Royal FrieslandCampina. Schumacher was FrieslandCampina's finance chief from 2014 to 2017.