Guinness-owner Diageo CEO step downs after tough two years, finance chief to lead in interim
Shares in the maker of Johnnie Walker whisky and Guinness beer rose about 3 per cent after the Financial Times first reported the news. They were among the top percentage gainers on Britain's blue-chip FTSE 100 index.
Diageo said Crew was leaving immediately by mutual agreement. It did not give further details but said it was maintaining its forecasts for fiscal 2025 and 2026.
The company is in the midst of a turnaround drive and in May unveiled a plan to cut US$500 million in costs and make substantial asset sales by 2028.
Crew had been in the top role for just about two years after long-time boss Ivan Menezes' death in June 2023 following a brief illness. She was one of only a handful of women to lead a blue-chip UK company.
Crew was previously Diageo's chief operating officer.
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The company's shares lost about 44 per cent of their value during her tenure.
'Debra has had a tough couple of years at the helm of Diageo and hopefully some new leadership will help to reinvigorate the company,' said Fred Mahon, fund manager at Diageo investor Church House.
Still, Diageo's shares have been among the better performers in the European wine and spirits sector, which has struggled after a boom during the pandemic when people drank more at home.
Under Crew, Jhangiani joined Diageo as chief financial officer in September last year as the company struggled with falling sales and wavering investor confidence. It is also facing a possible hit from US tariffs.
Crew and Jhangiani did not immediately respond to requests for comment on LinkedIn. REUTERS
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44 minutes ago
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It also denied there would be a new VIP dining room or a special elevator for top officials as well as expansive use of new marble. In a bid to squash the controversy, Mr Powell asked the Fed's inspector general this week to review the project. Will Trump follow through on his threats? For the moment, Mr Trump has sent mixed signals about his true intentions for Mr Powell. At a meeting with congressional lawmakers late on July 15, the president brandished a draft of a letter firing the Fed chair, though Mr Trump said on July 16 that he had only 'talked about the concept of firing him'. Financial markets initially reacted poorly, but recovered as soon as the president appeared to walk back his threat. Still, Mr Trump continued to pillory the Fed chair over interest rates, just days after his top aides called on Mr Powell to resign – and said they would begin the search for his successor. Mr Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, also demanded that the chair respond to a set of detailed questions about the renovations by this week. Some former government officials and monetary policy experts said they believed that the president's newly raised concerns about the renovations were a poor cover for his real goal to build a Fed more amenable to swift reductions in interest rates. 'The renovation controversy is pretty clearly manufactured faux outrage to try to justify Powell's for-cause removal,' said Mr Jeremy Kress, a former Fed banking regulator who is a faculty director of the University of Michigan's Center on Finance, Law and Policy. 'Even though it's obviously pretextual, this is uncharted legal territory, and it's anyone's guess how a legal case involving the Fed chair would be decided.' 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Mr Tarullo, for one, said that there was 'very little judicial precedent on what constitutes cause' in this case, and that it could vary from statute to statute, with some laws prescribing that an official can be 'removed only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance'. NYTIMES
