Brown-Forman has poached a senior global travel retail executive to be the next MD for its operations in the channel as well as a regional lead.
Matthew Hodges has commenced as MD for Eurasia, the Middle East & Africa and global travel retail this week, He moves across from cruise ship retail operator Harding, where he had been chief commercial officer for the three years until July.
Hodges previously spent almost seven years with Rémy Cointreau, also in the GTR channel, between 2009 and 2015.
While nobody was immediately available at Brown-Forman to provide details to Global Drinks Intel on who has been replaced, the vacancy had been advertised on LinkedIn about a month ago. “EurAsia/MEA/GTR is first and foremost a key member of the Emerging International division leadership team,” the ad stated. “The … division is one of Brown-Forman’s three operating units – USA & Canada, Europe and Emerging International.”
The president of the business unit is Michael Masick, who moved up in July from MD level for Latin America, Ukraine, the CIS and Russia.
Just over a month ago, the brand owner’s GTR MD, David Rodiek, was confirmed as having stepping down to “pursue new opportunities outside of Brown-Forman”.
