17 Jul 2025 Diageo seeks new CEO as Debra Crew steps down
Diageo has (16 July 2025) confirmed that its CEO, Debra Crew, has stepped down with immediate effect…..
In a statement, the alcohol giant revealed that Crew has stepped down from her role as chief executive as well as a board director by mutual agreement, though it did not disclose further details of the reasons for her departure.
Diageo has faced challenging sales declines, fuelled by economic uncertainty and evolving consumer spending habits, since Crew took up the chief executive position in 2023.
She joined Diageo in 2019, first as a non-executive director before serving as president of Diageo North America, group chief operating officer, then CEO.
The group recently announced a three-year $50-million cost savings programme, aiming to boost its performance and operational efficiency.
John Manzoni, chair of Diageo, said: “On behalf of Diageo and the board, I would like to thank Debra for her contributions to Diageo, including steering the company through the challenging aftermath of the global pandemic and the ensuing geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility”.
The board has now begun a formal search process, which will include the consideration of both internal and external candidates for the CEO role.
Nik Jhangiani, the company’s current chief financial officer, will assume the CEO position on an interim basis until a permanent appointment is made.
Analysis from The Guardian
Two years is no time at all to be the boss of a large FTSE 100 company, but the departure of Debra Crew from Diageo, the Guinness and Johnnie Walker group, has felt possible for at least half that period. Now she has gone “by mutual agreement”.
Crew’s first problem was that she followed a genuine corporate superstar in the form of the late Sir Ivan Menezes, whose strategy of “premiumisation” – encouraging punters to drink more expensive stuff – did wonders for profit margins year after year. Any successor would have found it hard to match his record.
Second, she started with a thumping profits warning in November 2023 – a proper shock to investors – and explained it badly. The cause was overstocking in Latin America in the post-Covid period, but it was never entirely clear how Diageo could have been so badly informed about the mismatch between stocks held by local distributors and how much tequila and whisky was actually being consumed on the ground. As the former COO, Crew could hardly blame others.
Third, she waited too long to ditch financial guidance, inherited from Menezes, that was plainly out of date. After Covid’s locked-up booze fest and the post-pandemic party period, the spirits market became harder to read when consumers turned more cautious. Clinging to “medium-term” sales growth of 5% to 7% while turning in numbers as low as 0.6% added to the sense of drift.
Fourth, even when Diageo came up with a cost-cutting plan in May, pledging $500m (£370m) of savings, it was the new finance director, Nik Jhangiani, who got the credit in the eyes of City. While Crew talked about “largely macroeconomic” factors at work, the incomer sounded more attuned to the reality that Diageo was living in a harsher operating climate. Only the ever-reliable Guinness brand has proved immune.
Fifth, a new chair, Sir John Manzoni, arrived in February, which was always going to be a moment of danger for a chief executive who had overseen a 40% fall in the share price. Thus Crew’s immediate exit lacks shock value.
When you’re getting fixed pay of £1.7m out of total remuneration of £3m last year, you’re vulnerable. The removal process sometimes should be unsentimental, just as it was at Unilever, where the last boss lasted only 18 months.
That is not to dispute that the macroeconomic forces are genuine. The spirits market has weakened and Pernod Ricard’s share price looks as horrible as Diageo’s. Complicating factors include Gen Z’s lower appetite for alcohol than their parents’ generation, slimming drugs’ possible effect on drinking habits and Donald Trump’s ever-changing tariffs.
Source: Reuters, The Guardian, FeedBev.com