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P&G Says Jon Moeller to Succeed David Taylor as CEO, President

P&G Says Jon Moeller to Succeed David Taylor as CEO, President

Procter & Gamble Co. said Chief Operating Officer Jon Moeller will succeed David Taylor as president and chief executive officer, elevating a career veteran to lead the consumer-products giant.

The change will go into effect Nov. 1. Taylor, 63, has served as CEO for almost six years and will stay on as executive chairman, the company said in a statement Thursday.

Moeller, 57, has climbed the ranks from his early days as a food analyst to become the public face of P&G in recent years. Since joining in 1988, he’s held more than a dozen roles with the company. He became the Cincinnati-based company’s chief financial officer in 2009, adding a vice chairman title in 2017. He was head of both finance and operations starting in 2019, before relinquishing the CFO job earlier this year.

The timing of Moeller’s promotion makes “perfect sense” as the company concludes its fiscal year and emerges from the pandemic, Taylor said in an interview. He pledged to support Moeller with the “high trust” they’ve built over the past decade.

“We go from strength to strength,” Taylor said. “I’ll take my cues from Jon on where I can be most helpful to him and the company. The idea is a seamless transition.”

Taylor and Moeller guided P&G through strategic changes following a period of sluggish sales that attracted the attention of billionaire Nelson Peltz, who took a stake in the company and lobbied for a thorough overhaul. Peltz eventually joined the board and adopted a collaborative role with management. The company responded with faster sales growth -- a trend that was turbocharged by the pantry loading of the early pandemic.

P&G shares fell less than 1% in late trading on Thursday. Since Taylor assumed the CEO role in 2015, the company’s shares have advanced 83%. That trails the S&P 500 but is close to double the rise of the S&P consumer-staples index.

P&G said Shailesh Jejurikar, who currently serves as head of the company’s fabric and home care segment, will become chief operating officer as of Oct. 1.

The company is scheduled to release results for its fiscal fourth quarter Friday morning. It faces a wave of higher costs for everything from shipping to commodities like resin and pulp.

The Chicago-born Moeller is active in Cincinnati’s civic and cultural affairs, according to a company biography, having served as both president and chairman of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s board of trustees. He is a lecturer at Cornell University.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.