Diageo has confirmed the departure of CEO Debra Crew with immediate effect.
A news article on the Financial Times’ website today (16 July) claimed that the group’s board was “planning to replace” Crew. The article cited “people familiar with the matter” as its source, with CFO Nik Jhangiani suggested as a replacement on an interim basis.
The development was confirmed by the group shortly afterwards, with Crew stepping down both as CEO and as a board director “by mutual agreement”. While thanking her for “her contributions to Diageo”, the company also confirmed Jhangiani’s temporary appointment.
Crew has been with Diageo since mid-2020, when she became the company’s regional president for North America. In October 2022, she assumed the position of chief operating officer – following the same career path as previous CEO Ivan Menezes – before taking over from Menezes just over two years ago. Her promotion was accelerated after Menezes suffered complications after hospital treatment and subsequently died, aged 63.
Within six months, Crew was forced to admit that Diageo “didn’t do good enough” in failing to monitor its inventory levels satisfactorily in the ‘Latin America & Caribbean’ reporting region. The issue resulted in a flat (-0.6%) sales performance in fiscal 2024 – to the end of June last year.
Since then, the brand owner has been performing well, relatively speaking; Another flat (+0.6%) set of sales figures in the first nine months of its most recent financial year compares favourably to the majority of its rival international spirits brand owners.
Diageo will report its fiscal 2025 results on 5 August.
