With effect from April 1, 2025, Diageo has named Hina Nagarajan as the new President of Diageo Africa. She will return to the African market, where she was formerly the company’s Managing Director of Africa Emerging Markets.
Nagarajan recently moved from her position as MD and CEO of Diageo India to a position on Diageo’s Global Executive Committee. Her action comes after she left Diageo India earlier this year, where she had been in charge for almost four years before being replaced by Praveen Someshwar.
She had this to say about her service time: “Over the past four years as MD & CEO of Diageo India, it has been my honour to lead a passionate and dedicated team. Together, we have achieved remarkable milestones, delivered strong financial performance, navigated challenges, and celebrated numerous successes.”
She emphasised the company’s development path, saying: “Our overall business growth has nearly tripled in the period from 2021-23 versus 2016-21. With our continued focus on premiumization, our Prestige & Above segment growth doubled, growing by 11.9% and contributing 87.4% to our total net sales for the financial year ending March 2024.”
Nagarajan held important leadership positions at Reckitt, including Senior Vice-President and Regional Director of North Asia, before joining Diageo.
In the meanwhile, John Kennedy will be replaced as President of Diageo Europe by Dayalan Nayager, who has been President of Diageo Africa since July 2022, as part of a larger leadership change. Kennedy had been acting as interim President for Europe when he first departed Diageo in 2023.
However, as Chief Commercial Officer of Diageo, Nayager will continue to carry out his duties. For the past twelve years, he has been in charge of Diageo’s Global Travel Retail segment as well as its companies in France, Ireland, and Great Britain. Along with overseeing significant divestitures in Africa, he recently paid US$81 million to Castel Group for Diageo’s majority ownership in Guinness Ghana Breweries.
Guinness Nigeria and Guinness Cameroon, the latter of which Castel also purchased, were divested earlier, BrandSpur news brand reports.
Diageo said earlier this month that sales for the six months ending in December 2024 had increased by 1%. However, despite a 2.8% drop in volumes, sales in “Africa” fell to US$944 million, while sales in “Europe” increased by 0.7%.
