BAT Announces Regional Reorganization

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 12/15/2010

British American Tobacco is to reduce the number of its management structure regions from five to four from the beginning of next year. As a result, a new region will be formed, Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa (EEMEA). The Asia-Pacific and Americas regions will remain unchanged, as will the Western Europe (WE) region, apart from the inclusion within it of the South Eastern Europe (SEE) area. Andrew Gray, currently regional director AME, will become regional director of the EEMEA, which will be formed from all the previous Africa and Middle East (AME) business units plus Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Caucasus and Central Asia. Jack Bowles, will continue in his role as regional director of WE, though the WE region will be expanded to include all of its current business units plus the South Eastern Europe area, consisting of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo. Meanwhile, Peter Taylor, group operations director, is to retire at the end of May, and he will be succeeded by Des Naughton, currently regional director, Eastern Europe. Naughton will become group operations director designate on January 1 and work closely with Taylor and the global operations and research and development teams. "This is an important step in our plans to reduce complexity in our management structures and achieve a better balance in the scale of the resulting four regions, said Nicandro Durante, chief executive designate. Enditem