The head of Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits has called time on his four-year tenure, prompting the French group to recruit internally for a replacement.
Andrew Highcock, who assumed the CEO position in November 2018, has left the William Peel blended Scotch owner “to pursue new projects”. Highcock has been involved with the alcohol industry since 1989 and joined Marie Brizard from Asahi’s Kompania Piwowarska brewer in Poland, where he had been president for five years.
Replacing him is Fahd Khadraoui, the company confirmed late last week. Khadraoui has been head of strategy, M&A, legal & corporate development since late 2019.
The announcement came a week after Marie Brizard reported a 17.3% lift in sales from the three months to the end of September. The group’s brands, which also include Sobieski vodka and the namesake line of cocktail-focused liqueurs and spirits, are “positioned in line with customer needs in the current inflationary environment”.
Sales in the first nine months of 2022 were up 9.8% on the corresponding period last year, totalling EUR135m (US$136m).
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