Marc Engel has joined the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE) as Chief Supply Chain Officer on 1 January 2016, according to the Unilever website. His appointment follows on from his position as Executive Vice President in Unilever’s East Africa business where he was responsible for laying the foundations for accelerated growth in emerging markets. In his 20-year career with Unilever, Engel has worked in Singapore, the Netherlands, UK, Brazil, Switzerland and Kenya. He has extensive experience in supply-chain operations, covering procurement, logistics, finance and strategy development. He is an Executive Board Member of Kenya Association of Manufacturers and a member of the Supervisory Board of PostNL.
Marc Engel succeeds Pier-Luigi Sigismondi who will move to South East Asia and Australasia (SEAA) shortly for a handover ahead of taking on the role of EVP SEAA in July 2016. Engel originally joined Unilever in 1990 at Unilever Meat Group in Oss, the Netherlands. He was on the construction team building the Ragu tomato sauce factory, which he later ran as Production Manager. He left the company to work at Shell in 1993, but returned to Unilever in 1995.
He moved into the supply chain operation in 1998 and held various positions in the UK, Latin America, the Netherlands and Switzerland until becoming Unilever’s first Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) in 2008. He was in charge of the worldwide procurement of third-party goods and services with a budget of EUR26 billion and a team of 1,500 people across 67 locations. During his time as CPO, he was also responsible for establishing the Partner to Win programme which was instrumental in helping to transform Unilever’s supplier relationships and to deliver Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan ambition.