Our local leadership

Luc-Olivier Marquet, Executive Vice President of Unilever South Africa has 23 years' experience in the FMCG industry, most of which was spent in developing and emerging markets.

He worked for the L’Oreal group in Europe, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Miami and the Philippines until 2013 as well and led as the President and Managing Director of L’Oreal in the Philippines.

His background includes working in Marketing (Brand Building and Brand Development), before moving to Customer Development as a Key Account Manager, then into Travel Retail (Europe and Americas). He has 10 years' experience as a Country Managing Director with L’Oreal.

He joined Unilever in August 2013 as Vice President for Unilever West Africa and Vice Chairman for the Board of Unilever Ghana Limited.

He was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Unilever Cote D’Ivoire. In that role he was responsible for developing Unilever business in the 13 countries west of Nigeria, which includes 3 operating companies (Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, and Niger) and representation offices.

As a member of the Unilever South Africa board, and the Director of Foods & Teas, Antony is a seasoned professional with a wealth of experience under his belt.

While Antony has been part of the Unilever team for many years, his career path also includes a stint as Marketing Executive at MassMart (Game, DionWired, FoodCo), as well as Marketing Director Personal Care at Indigo Brands (Yardley, Lentheric, Coty).

Antony has a Bachelor of Commerce, Marketing & Finance from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

While currently living in Durban, Antony has had the pleasure of living in Cape Town, as well as London and Los Angeles.

Recently appointed as Vice President, Supply Chain for Southern Africa, David Suarez Rodriguez brings with him a vast array of Unilever experience, having joined the business as a Finance Management Trainee in 1998. Prior to moving to South Africa, David was the VP for Supply Chain Mexico and Caribbean, a position which he filled for over 4 years.

During his tenure at Unilever, David has work on integrating the supply chain end-to-end internally as well as with customers and suppliers. He has driving improvements in safety, quality, customer service as well as costs and cash to generate growth. In addition, he’s been responsible for planning, production and restructuring projects in Latin America, as well as overseeing the construction of Unilever’s leading aerosols facility in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

David is married with two beautiful children.

As CCM Director for Unilever Africa, Enver Groenewald leads the Media strategy, planning and buying functions for Unilever’s sub-Saharan markets. In this capacity, Enver also serves on the boards of the AAA School of Advertising and Mobile Marketing Association.

Prior to joining Unilever, he held a number of executive management roles including that of CEO for Interbrand Southern Africa; GM at Times Media Group; CEO of Ochre Media;

Business Director at Ogilvy; and, Head of Brand at Sanlam Group.

Cumulatively, his career history has provided Enver with significant multi-industry experience in key Africa markets and with category-leading Brands spanning Retail, Telecoms, Financial Services, FMCG, the Public Sector and NPC’s.

He is a keen advocate of progressive business models that deliver profitability through innovation, social consciousness, purpose and people.

Jennifer joined Unilever in 2001 as a Graduate recruit in R&D and during her tenure has held various roles within R&D covering South Africa, the Africa Cluster, and the Africa, Middle East and Turkey region. From 2012, Jennifer led the R&D team for the Beauty and Personal Care division across Africa and more recently moved to lead the R&D team for HomeCare for Africa, reporting to Gaby Slavsky, R&D VP Global Deploy, HomeCare.

In addition, Jennifer is the Regulatory Affairs Director for the Africa Cluster and R&D Site Leader, co-ordinating the common R&D agenda across divisions with a focus on Talent management, Safety and Systems.

I am a proud wife and mom to a daughter and twin sons. In my spare time, I make time for gym to keep my body and mind fit. I love the creative outlet of indigenous gardening and home renovations. At work, I am passionate about the opportunities in Africa and I try every day to make Africa stand proudly on the global stage.

Lethepu Matshaba, VP Homecare Africa, is a seasoned business leader with 20 years experience.

Her diverse career involves the Foods and Personal Care categories locally and within the Africa region. Lethepu has extensive external experience having consulted for several Blue Chip multinationals and Government departments. This after heading up the 2010 FIFA World Cup Marketing Operations.

Her big passion is helping Rewrite Africa’s Narrative.

Mechell is currently Vice President Human Resources for Unilever Africa. Leading Talent and organisation activities across Unilever businesses in over 40 countries. She is passionate about building African talent for Africa.

Mechell joined Unilever 18 years ago. Her professional career has always been in Human Resources, but her experience spans Factory and Corporate roles partnering Customer Development, Supply Chain and Finance. Her HR experience spans comprehensive disciplines such as Learning, Leadership Development, Organisational Effectiveness, Culture transformation and business partnering. Mechell has experience across Africa, the Middle-East, South Africa and Turkey. 

She was appointed as VP Human Resources in Africa in 2012 and in the lead up to this appointment has notched up many key achievements such as the Unilever Global Compass award in 2010 for Winning with People, Business Partner awards and is recognised as a global leadership development facilitator. Her current portfolio spans 5 multi-country business units looking after 40 countries across Africa.

Before joining Unilever, she worked with Anderson Consulting as a Change Management Analyst. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa as well as a post graduate in Business Management from Wits Business School.

Mechell has two sons Yashvir and Ruhaan, who she sees as her true blessing in life. Mechell recently got involved in cycling and in the last few years has completed several cycle races of 100kms in distance. She recently climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Mechell has a zest for life and believes that nothing is impossible to achieve as long as you enjoy it!

Mikateko Tshetshe joined Unilever South Africa in 2017 as Finance Vice President, sporting a BCom as well as successfully being qualified as a Fellow with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in the UK.

Prior to joining Unilever she was the CFO for AstraZeneca, a research-based BioPharmaceutical company. Mikateko also spent 12 years in the FMCG industry with SC Johnson. She has transitioned through several roles to get to where she is today, having started her career as a trainee at the German manufacturer Bayer (Pty) Ltd.

Popularly known as a authentic, approachable and a result driven leader, Mikateko developed her strategic leadership capabilities, constantly ensuring she stretches and develops herself and others.

A proud mum and wife, Mikateko is blessed with 2 beautiful kids and enjoys reading and listening to music in her spare time.

Her daily mantra is “Anything is possible when you put your mind to it”!

Shamiel is the General Manager for Ice Cream Southern Africa. He has gained extensive experience through diverse roles across a number of geographies and categories, both in retail and professional channels.

After graduating with a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry & Biochemistry, he joined Unilever and spent the first 7 years of his career in R&D and Factory roles in South Africa and the United States. Keen to develop his marketing and business skills, he completed a PGD in Marketing Management through correspondence. Over the past 12 years, he has done numerous roles in Customer Development, Foodsolutions, and Category Marketing spanning South Africa, Middle East, Pakistan and Africa.

His most recent role was as Country Director of Zambia, where he embarked on resetting the business through RTM Transformation and driving Performance Culture. He is passionate about building team capability, and has a strong track record of mentoring talent.

Reading, travel and immersing themselves in new experiences are things both he and his wife Aneesa enjoy spending their free time doing.

Great products from a range in House-Hold and Home-Care, Beauty and Personal Care, Foods and Refreshments, gives Unilever a unique place in the lives of the people of South Africa! We want to grow our business whilst decoupling our environmental footprint from our growth and increasing our positive social impact. I manage the corporate affairs team.

We lead and connect the sustainable business agenda delivered through purpose-led brands, categories and functions. Together with the SA executive leadership and global teams, we support in-country reputation, communication and sustainability enhancement:

• Engage and advocate the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) by building and strengthening relationships with government, employees, suppliers, customers, consumers, media, civil society and communities;
• Manage legislation, regulation, stakeholder engagement, internal and external communication;
• Champion change in carbon emissions, waste and water through innovation;
• Drive economic transformation through Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) and an inclusive growth model for prosperous townships and youth employability;
• Future-proof our business through digital transformation to stay close to our consumers.

Let’s make Sustainable Living a Commonplace!

At SAB I managed 5 regional corporate affairs teams for delivery of the corporate affairs strategy:

• executing the alcohol harm reduction strategy,
• building trust and credibility through stakeholder engagement,
• managing the legislative and regulatory issues;
• delivering commercial value through our licence to trade agenda,
• creating real positive impact on our communities through sustainable development (SD), enterprise development (ED) and social economic development (SED) and;
• building the SAB brand and reputation.

I served as the first Chairperson of the R2b SAB Employee Share Scheme Trust and as a Trustee on the SAB Provident Fund Board.

Stacey Grant is Unilever Africa’s Consumer Market and Insight (CMI) Director and has 13 years’ experience at Unilever across all product categories, various geographies and has led teams across different business units.

She has worked in both innovation development, as well as market deployment, giving her holistic vision and capabilities in end-to-end business leadership. Her passions are in the areas of nurturing talent, inspiring purpose, and driving business results efficiently through pragmatism and creative problem solving.

In her current role as Consumer & Market Insights Director for Africa, she leads an insights team that is spread across South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and CDI. She works both with marketing and sales teams, to identify growth opportunities and ensure high ROI behind everything that is executed in-market.

Stacey has made many significant contributions to both Unilever and CMI – most notably leading the early work on the PeopleWorld Platform, to set its foundations and secure business investment in this tool, which today is a critical enabler to knowledge storage and usage in the business. And more recently, Stacey led work to galvanise a USLP identity for the global CMI community that connects both CMI heads and hearts to the USLP, which has contributed to a significant step change in the impact that CMI drives in this area.

Stacey is fiercely patriotic to Africa, and is energised by the unique challenges thrown her way daily, which demand innovative and creative solutions. To this end, she has spear-headed and piloted many creative tools and approaches that have since been implemented in other clusters around the world. She is passionate about consumers, and believes she has a key role to keep the business focused on serving people.

In 2015, she presented at an external Women in Research conference, about how digital is an enabler to real human needs & culture, and so even with “the digital way of things” we should not lose focus on the person behind the device.

Stacey’s biggest passion, however, is her family. She is a mum to 2 beautiful boys, who have given her a stronger sense of purpose and perspective in dealing with life’s daily challenges and opportunities.

Stefan is 100% about life. His purpose originates from his passion for people and his drive to inspire himself and others to grow and become the best version of themselves. He believe we own our destiny and by taking accountability we can make a real impact as an individual, within the team, within the larger business and ultimately in the communities where we live and operate.

That is why he chose the words “Inspire, Passion, Growth” as his purpose statement.

He feels that at Unilever he gets to live out his purpose daily. He feels privileged to work for this leading FMCG business, with world-class brands, founded on a clear and defined purpose. As the Customer Development (CD) Vice President – Stefan leads 240 sales people and 4 500 Unilever Field Sales people through Unilever’s 3rd party partner, Smollan. It is a massive undertaking and a responsibility that he takes very seriously.

CD’s purpose is to create value for its many stakeholders. For Unilever’s shoppers Stefan and his teams aims to deliver relevant solutions when and where they need it. As CD, he continues to build a frictionless, digital path to purchase, resulting in a great experience both offline and online. He also aims to create inclusive business models that sell brands with purpose, enabling Unilever to positively impacts the communities within which we operate. Stefan truly believes that living the Unilever purpose is a key enabler of Unilever delivering predictable, sustainable, and profitable growth to create value for our shareholders.

After securing his Masters in Management from the London School of Economics, Tony started his career in banking; but quickly realized that the world of derivatives and grey suits was not for him! Since 2001, he has been worked in various marketing roles and capacities across all of Unilever’s great Home and Personal Care categories and brands. Most recently, Tony has been based in Singapore in a Global SkinCare Brand Development Director role.

Tony is married, and has three sons.

Having been at Unilever since September 2015, Wellington has been appointed General Counsel for Africa as of 1 May 2019.

Born, bred and schooled in Zimbabwe, Wellington is a registered attorney of the High and Supreme Courts of Zimbabwe. His background includes internal corporate counsel roles in sectors such as banking and mobile telecommunications, as well as a private law firm practice. He’s also lectured for over 8 years in the Faculty of Law at the University of Zimbabwe.

Wellington is married with two daughters. He’s extremely passionate about soccer and Formula 1 and sports as a whole. He also fancies himself a creative writer, a true “Jack of all Trades.”