Sir Ivan Manezes, the CEO of Diageo, passed away on Wednesday. Manezes was supposed to retire this month at the end. According to a Diageo statement received by Reuters, he was seeking treatment for ailments such as a stomach ulcer. His wife and two children have survived him.
"Over the weekend, we learned that Ivan's recovery suffered a significant setback due to complications, which followed emergency surgery on the ulcer," Diageo said in a statement accessed by Reuters.
On June 5, he named Debra Crew the Interim CEO. Beginning July 1, Crew will join the board as an executive director. With this, Debra Crew joins an exclusive group of women who are the CEOs of FTSE 100-listed companies in Britain.
Since 2020, Debra Crew has held the position of president of Diageo North America and Global Supply. She faces difficulty in maintaining Diageo's hegemony in the US and launching additional high-end brands after COVID.
Manezes joined the business in 1997, a year after Guinness and Grand Metropolitan merged to become it. In July 2013, he was named CEO of Diageo.
The late Diageo CEO is credited with driving the corporation through numerous acquisitions and a significant sustainability revamp, as well as drastically increasing brand sales. Manezes held marketing and strategy positions with companies like Nestle, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Whirlpool prior to joining Diageo in 1997.
Ivan Manezes also served as the president of the Council of Scotch Whisky Association, as well as a non-executive director at Tapestry, a trustee at Movement to Work, a member of the Kellogg School of Management's global advisory board, and the chairman of the Council of Scotch Whisky Association.
