The CEO of Unilever Prestige is leaving

Vasiliki Petrou is leaving her position as CEO of the prestigious Unilever division, a segment of the consumer goods company she founded ten years ago.

Petrou joined Unilever about 10 years ago to create a prestigious division of the British giant. Under her leadership, the company acquired Dermalogica in 2015 for an estimated purchase price of $1 billion; hence we are building a luxury cosmetics department, which today boasts a total of 10 brands.

Before joining Unilever, the executive spent more than 18 years at rival P&G, most recently serving as global managing director.

“​Today it was announced that I will be leaving Unilever at the end of July. “Ten years since the creation of the Unilever Prestige business unit, I have made the difficult decision to leave in pursuit of my dream of starting my own investment fund,” Petrou said in a statement on LinkedIn.

“The Unilever Prestige idea has disrupted long-established paradigms and created a new global playbook for premium product acquisitions in the cosmetics industry and sustainable, long-term growth. Being the founder and CEO of the prestigious company Unilever has been a great honor for us and I am proud of the many milestones we have achieved together: a portfolio of 10 beautiful brands in just 10 years that has reached a global portfolio of €1.4 billion and continues to outperform the market on a personal level, as someone who believes in uplifting and supporting women, and as a female leader, working in a department that is 80% women has been an incredibly rewarding and inspiring experience,” Petro added.

Her successor has not been announced.

In its latest earnings update, the Food-to-Beauty group said company-wide underlying sales growth in the first quarter was 4.4%, with volume growing to 2.2%. All five business groups reporting to USG, led by Beauty & Wellbeing.