Estonian-born Jaak Mikkel in June became the general manager of Coca-Cola HBC, the biggest business in beverage production, a company that laid off almost 1,000 employees during the crisis and lost 11% of revenue (in 2013 against 2008). Notwithstanding, the local bottler of Coca-Cola remained leader of the market, with revenue of RON1.8 billion (EUR408 million) in 2013.
Mikkel has worked with Coca-Cola HBC since 2008 and before that worked for ten years at Shell. He replaced French-born Stephane Batoux, who did not leave Romania, though, but was recruited to run the biggest entrepreneurial business in the milk industry, Albalact Alba-Iulia.
The third major move this year in the consumer goods industry took place at Ursus Breweries, the leader of the beer market. Russian manager Igor Tikhonov in early 2014 took over the reins of the brewer with revenue of RON1.43 billion (EUR323 million) amid an unfavorable market context.
The three are the only new executives in the ranking of the 20 largest producers in the FMCG field, with another 17 executives having kept their positions for at least one year.
All the 20 managers are key people in Romanian business. Together, the 20 largest FMCG players in 2013 generated revenue worth RON24 billion (EUR5.5 billion), up 5.5% from 2012 and almost 40% higher than in 2008.
In the top 20, multinationals clearly dominate the tobacco industry, the beer and detergent markets, while the meat industry is in the hands of Romanian entrepreneurs.
Radu Lazaroiu (Romaqua), Lucian Ghinea (Bergenbier) and Grigore Horoi (Agricola Bacau) are the only Romanian executives running a top 20 company, while Ioan Popa (Transavia Alba-Iulia) and Vasile Lucut (Unicarm Satu-Mare) are the entrepreneurs who did not cede their executive positions and are still directly involved in the business.
The ranking of the 20 largest FMCG players took into account only companies that exclusively operate in this field. Companies such as Bunge (vegetal oil), Agrana (sugar market) or Henkel (cosmetics) were not included in the ranking as a major part of their business comes from agriculture or building materials.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)