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Michael Treschow is to become the first ever outside candidate to assume the chairmanship of Unilever. He will succeed Antony Burgmans at the Anglo-Dutch consumer product company’s May 2007 AGM. Treschow’s appointment comes after significant restructuring of the company’s UK and Dutch boards, and he will be the group’s first independent, non-executive chairman. Treschow is currently chairman of both Ericsson and Electrolux, but plans to step down from the latter in April. He also chairs the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, and will relinquish this position in May.

Pat O’Driscoll has stepped down as Northern Foods chief executive after three years at the company, to be replaced by chilled and bakery divisions director Stefan Barden. Barden will assume his new position on 5 February and over the next three months will work alongside O’Driscoll as part of a “smooth handover”. Barden is former managing director of Heinz UK and Ireland.

Geoff Unwin will step down as chairman of United Business Media, the news distribution company, at the end of 2007. Unwin said after having served on the board for 11 years and been chairman for five, he felt it an appropriate time to move on.

John Tiner has announced he will step down as chief executive of the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) in July. This will come after almost four years of leading the regulator, and Tiner said he would now like to take another job in the private sector before he thinks about retirement. Ed Balls, economic secretary to the treasury, paid tribute to Tiner’s role in driving forward the FSA’s principles and risk-based approach to regulation. Lombard in the Financial Times (17 January) noted that financial chiefs credit Tiner with bringing about the end of the FSA’s civil service culture and replacing it with a can-do attitude. However, Lombard added, the regulator could no doubt do with a fresh chief executive, and if Tiner’s major successes have been internal, his replacement has more work to do outside the FSA.

Roberto Quarta is to stand down as chairman of BBA Aviation, following a demerger from Fiberweb last year - and chief executive Michael Harper has temporarily taken over his role in an executive capacity. BBA is in the midst of searching for a new chief executive – Harper was appointed to the position on an interim basis last year and was previously a non-executive director at the company - and on this being accomplished he will become non-executive chairman. The Combined Code recommends against one individual holding both these roles; in this case, however, it is only a transitional arrangement.

The aircraft services company also announced David Rough’s retirement as a non-executive director. He will leave the board at the company’s 26 April AGM.

Hotel company, Millennium & Copthorne, has appointed Peter Papadimitropoulos as chief executive. He will join the board on 1 March and will be relocating to London from South Africa. He has been a non-executive director at South African hotel and casino group Peermont Global and has held corporate finance roles at JP Morgan and ING Barings. The previous chief executive of Millennium & Copthorne, Tony Potter, had left at the end of October last year.

Nick Wharton has been appointed finance director at Halfords, the FTSE 250 retail company, effective 3 February. Wharton is currently business development & human resources director at Halfords, and was part of the management team that in recent years brought the company from private to public ownership. Also joining the board is Paul McClenaghan, trading director of Halfords.

All three non-executives directors of Cape Diamonds have resigned from the company. The AIM-listed miner had its shares suspended at the end of 2006 as a result of failing to release its 2006 results. The company gave no explanation for the directors’ resignations.  The Daily Telegraph’s Damian Reece (12 January) said it is safe to say all is not well in Cape’s boardroom. He added that for a quoted company a one line statement is not enough to detail three resignations; shareholders need to be told the whole truth, he said.

February, 2007

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