Gary Cofer is now P&G country manager

Helmut Meixner, chief executive officer of P&G in India, has retired on July 5, 2000 and Gary Cofer, who was earlier director (customer business development), has been appointed P&G country manager with immediate effect.

agencyfaqs! News Bureau

MUMBAI, July 11

Procter & Gamble's India operation has a new chief now. Helmut Meixner, chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble in India, has retired on July 5, 2000 and Gary Cofer, who was earlier director (customer business development), has been appointed P&G country manager with immediate effect. The new designation - country manager - is part of the Asean-Australasia-India (AAI) redesignation at P&G.

Thirty-seven year old Cofer joined the company in the US in 1985 and has spent the past 10 years in various P&G operations in Asia in diverse markets such as Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and China. He has been with P&G India since January 1998 and during this time he has been closely involved with Meixner in establishing the company's strategic design and direction and implementing the company's new distribution system in the country.

The Cincinnati-based consumer products major Procter & Gamble Company holds a 60 per cent stake in the Rs 468-crore P&G Hygiene and Health Care. P&G Home Products is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based multinational. As part of its global organisation 2005 restructuring, P&G Hygiene and Health Care will be relocating 50 employees across all levels to Singapore this year.

The move is part of a bigger gameplan with the multinational laying greater emphasis on India as part of the AAI Market Development Organisation (MDO). P&G is now working on a simple concept, whereby the MDO operates as a single entity with Singapore being the headquarters. All initiative and plans would be treated as that of one "company". This leads to co-location of multi-functional resources at a single location.

"As a result, managers from various functions that were hitherto based in AAI countries including India, would be relocated to the AAI MDO headquarters at Singapore. This will create synergies and efficiencies and is consistent with our earlier decision to realign management responsibilities from geographic basis to product category basis," the company told reporters.

The people movement from India will continue till June 2001. The 50 employees moving out of India forms a mere 7 per cent of the company's strength at 730 employees. "India has always been a key source of talent for P&G's operations globally. Prior to the AAI re-design changes, close to 150 employees of P&G India were already working in worldwide P&G organisations.

At the same time, we reiterate that the Indian operations will continue to be manned by high performing, highly motivated employees and P&G will continue to aggressively recruit and hire the best candidates for its Indian organisation," the company maintained.

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