Consumer goods giant Unilever has appointed Heiko Schipper as the new president of its nutrition business unit, effective 1 May 2024.

Schipper will also join Unilever’s executive leadership team, the company added.

Commenting on the appointment, chief executive, Hein Schumacher stated, “Heiko is a global business leader with deep expertise and experience in the food and nutrition industry and a long track record of delivering sustained high performance.

“He is a very impactful, values-driven leader and I look forward to working with him as we continue our focus on accelerating the growth of Unilever’s Nutrition business, which includes our leading Knorr and Hellmann’s global power brands.”

Heiko Schipper

Schipper is an experienced professional with a successful track record in the global food and nutrition industry.

Currently, he serves as the president of Bayer Consumer Health.

In 2018, he joined Bayer and has played an instrumental role in improving its performance to achieve ‘industry-leading’ growth for its consumer health division.

Schipper started his career at Nestlé, spending more than 20 years in sales and marketing roles in Asia, before rising to lead Nestlé’s global Nutrition business division as CEO in 2014, the company added.

In February, Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher said billionaire activist and board member Nelson Peltz is “fully behind” a recently devised strategy to re-invigorate the company, even as some other investors remain sceptical after years of industry underperformance.

At the time, he told Reuters he wants Unilever, whose brands include Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, to chart a “systematic” marketing strategy for its top brands.