Outsider as head of Unilever

Here in India, Unilever gets a great press- cradle of star managers and all that. Interesting, then, that the firm has decided to pick an outsider as its new CEO, somebody who worked for rivals P & G and Nestle.

FT has a story in which it notes:

The news came as a welcome surprise to investors used to complaining, as one puts it, of an “insular executive team” that ran the business “like the civil service”. It was even more startling to those who know the group from the inside. After years of underperforming its peers, had Unilever finally found the man to return it to its former glory?

Unilever has been something of an underperformer in India too lately. But that doesn't keep its managers from getting rave reviews in the media. Incidentally, I remember reading that M S Banga and Harish Munwani were in the running for the top job. They seem to have lost out as Keki Dadiseth had earlier.