People to Watch in International Business

By Barbara Kiviat Sunday, Feb. 15, 2004
    • FERNANDO AGUIRRE
    Banana Booster
    After college, Aguirre, 46, passed up a tryout for the Cincinnati Reds to join the city's top business team, Procter & Gamble. Good choice. The Mexico native orchestrated one turnaround after another, like transforming P&G; Brazil from a money loser into P&G;'s second most profitable Latin American subsidiary. In January, Aguirre became CEO of Chiquita Brands International, which left bankruptcy two years ago but is still struggling. Aguirre's plan: focus on marketing and value-added products, like the company's new fresh-cut-fruit business.

    ROBERT SOCIA
    Car Dealer
    After 17 years, General Motors is returning to South Africa in full force, buying out its majority partner, Delta Motor. Socia, 49, a GM veteran, arrives to manage the newly named GM South Africa. GM sees the unit, which turned out only about 40,000 cars last year and claimed an 11% market share, as a springboard for growth in Africa. Socia, who previously ran worldwide purchasing, including a cost-saving partnership with Fiat, will fold the division back into GM. The company left the operation at the end of 1986 to protest apartheid, then reappeared in 1997, when it bought a 49% stake in Delta.

    JILL PAITCHEL
    Global Investment Chief
    When Citicorp and Travelers Group merged in 1998, Paitchel, 45, led the effort to combine the companies' product lines for overseas investors. Last month Paitchel moved to Janus Capital Group, where she is running that firm's international operation, which manages $6 billion in assets in mutual funds and private accounts for folks from Taiwan to Milan. Whereas the domestic market is mature, Janus sees growth potential abroad for investments catering to retail and institutional clients, like Latin American pension funds.

    KEN HANNA
    Candy Cruncher
    Change and challenge are getting familiar to Hanna, 50. He engineered the late-1990s breakup of the British food conglomerate Dalgety after earlier stints in finance at Avis Europe and Guinness. Now Hanna is leaving a London private-equity firm to become CFO of Cadbury Schweppes in April. He will spearhead the confection-and-beverage company's four-year plan to cut costs by closing some factories and shrinking its work force 10%. Also on the agenda: integrating Adams, which Cadbury bought from Pfizer for $4.2 billion, gaining brands such as Trident, Halls and Dentyne.