Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc has appointed Jeremy Darroch as its new chairman replacing Chris Sinclair who will step down after six years in the top job.
Darroch formerly ran the broadcaster Sky Plc and will take over from Sinclair, who has been on the board of the consumer goods company for nine years in total, in May 2024, the company said Wednesday.
The move by the Strepsils maker comes not long after Kris Licht started in his role as chief executive officer and former Nike Inc. executive Shannon Eisenhardt started as chief financial officer. Darroch’s appointment brings new management across the top of the company, which recently delivered slower-than-expected sales growth.
Reckitt stock rose about 1% in early trading in London. Shares of the company are down nearly 4% since the start of the year, and were under pressure last month after the Enfamil maker disappointed investors in the third quarter. New CEO Licht’s £1 billion ($1.2 billion) buyback plan also failed to convince that Reckitt would deliver sustainable and predictable growth without tailwinds provided by the sales of disinfectants during the pandemic and the infant formula crisis in the US.
Read More: Reckitt Shares Fall as New CEO’s Buybacks Fail to Convince
Darroch is a well-known businessman in Britain who ran Sky for 13 years and was in charge when the pan-European pay-TV and broadband company was taken over by US giant Comcast. Under Darroch’s tenure, Sky’s value almost trebled. The executive joined the Reckitt board as a senior independent non-executive director in November 2022.
The new leaders at Reckitt will need to shepherd the maker of everyday products through a potentially challenging time as Licht, who started in his new role in October, implements a fresh strategy to boost investment and increase operating profit faster than sales.
(Updates with shares, more detail on company from fourth paragraph. A previous version of this article was corrected.)
