Corporate head hunt by Diageo

Food and drink giant Diageo is on the search for a new director of

corporate communications to replace outgoing corporate affairs director

Peter Lipscomb when he leaves in June.

The role, reporting to the Diageo CEO John McGrath, has been modified to

remove responsibility for public affairs and government relations, which

has been handled for the last four months by Mark Leverton, government

and industrial affairs director of Diageo subsidiary UDV.

In a reorganisation of the firm’s communications function Diageo has

also promoted corporate communications manager Kathryn Partridge to head

of external relations. Along with head of corporate citizenship Geoffrey

Bush and a soon-to-be-appointed head of internal communications,

Partridge will report to Lipscomb’s successor.

Headhunters Korn and Ferry have been hired to search for both internal

and external candidates for the director role. An appointment is

expected within two months, to allow whoever gets the job to work their

notice before taking over from Lipscomb early in the summer.

Diageo is divided into four units: UDV, for spirits and wines; Guinness,

for beer; Pillsbury, for packaged food; and Burger King. Each of these

groups, along with their brands, is responsible for retaining PR

agencies for product and consumer PR. Burger King uses Nexus Choat,

while Guinness retains Lexis. Pillsbury announced last month it was

handing its Old El Paso food range and Haagen-Dazs ice cream account to

Edelman PR.

At corporate level, Diageo uses Brunswick for its financial PR work.