I was surprised to read about P&G replacing AG Lafley as CEO with current COO Robert McDonald. The WSJ article was not explicit as to the reasons, but it appeared that the timing had been accelerated from a planned transition to occur later, perhaps due to lower-than-expected results P&G was expected to announce.
Lafley is one of the few star CEOs this decade who seemed to deserve the status. Remember P&G 10 years ago? Durk Jager was CEO. Lafley led the company through the acquisition of Gillette, an aggressive move into cosmetics, and innumerable product innovations (SpinBrush, Febreze, etc., etc.), and successfully competing with a wave of private-label competitors.
Lafley was perhaps the pre-eminent innovation CEO of his era-focused on the customer and the job she was trying to do, open to collaboration and ideas from the outside, committed to growing in emerging markets.
There are horses for courses, and perhaps the board felt that McDonald was better to lead the company through the tough times ahead. But Lafley's contributions shouldn't be forgotten. I, for one, am interested to see what he decides to do next. And if I was on the board of a consumer packaged goods company, I might want to give him a call.
Previous posts about AG Lafley:
Innovation: doing it all yourself is so twentieth-century
Complex business problems need diagnosis, not packaged solutions
The first great business book of 2008
"The consumer is boss"
"Sesame Street simple" - communication with a story
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