Dive Brief:
- Franck Riboud is stepping aside after 18 years as chief executive officer of Danone. Riboud exits his role amid declining profit at the world's largest maker of yogurt and will remain as chairman.
- Emmanuel Faber, who has served as deputy to Riboud, was named as the new chief executive.
- The move comes in an environment of falling sales, rising milk prices and an ongoing struggle to recover from the massive "false alarm" recall of infant formula in Asia.
Dive Insight:
Analysts and investors won't be appeased by this move. Danone is in trouble and, as we've noted before, the pressure is building for the company to do something dramatic. Naming the second-in-command to the top job may buy Danone a bit of time, but it's unlikely to be seen as the sort of game-changer that the markets expect.