NOW here’s an interesting confection. Cadbury Schweppes, a quintessentially British FTSE 100 giant that once had a line of old Etonian family members to head it, has put an American lawyer on top.
Todd Stitzer narrows his brown eyes. He is in his fourth-floor office in London’s upper-crust Berkeley Square, looking as anxious and stiff as the Tin Man after a prolonged shower.
His edginess is plain to see. Running a big global company ... yup, he can do that; but handling the notoriously tricky British press after announc- ing redundancies, now that’s frightening.
So let’s start easy. What’s it like as an American reaching the top of a very British company? Pause. “I think Cadbury Schweppes has a wonderful heritage, around its founding fathers and the spirit that exists in the company, and we never want to give that up, but clearly it has become more global and international, and it has brought in more people and cultures from around the globe. But it does have a positive and unique British heritage and it is important for us to maintain that.”
Stitzer, a slim 51-year-old, smiles tensely. He can, on occasions, reply to a slightly different question than the one you have asked. His answers can also be over-long, wordy and preceded by that little pause as if he is just checking he has got all the cards in the right order. Lawyers, eh? He also likes business jargon. At presentations to investors last month, when he outlined restructuring plans for the company, he introduced Cadbury Schweppes’s new initiatives with taglines such as “fuel for growth” and “smart variety”, which led a few to smirk. You just couldn’t imagine either the intellectual Sir Adrian Cadbury, or the poshly abrasive Sir Dominic Cadbury, both former bosses, coming out with those with a straight face.
Anyway, let’s get off his back. Stitzer, six months in the job, has had a rough few weeks. His father died days before his big presentations began last month, the press misinterpreted some of his initiatives and he is still playing his way in.
“Todd’s very intelligent, clever as New York lawyers tend to be, and highly ambitious,” says Sir Dominic Cadbury. “It’ll be easier for him to relax when he has the runs on the board.”
His appointment, made in April, is also a powerful signal of how Cadbury Schweppes is changing. For those who remember the decades-old criticism that the group had too many “nice chaps” (public-school twits) moving through its ranks, he is a neat riposte, though the current senior team plays that down. “The fact that he is American is coincidental,” says John Sunderland, former chief executive, now chairman, “but it does show that Cadbury Schweppes is meritocratic.”
And it needs to be. Now a truly global multinational, with a stock-market value of £8.2 billion, Cadbury Schweppes is competing against the biggest rivals (Nestlé, Mars, Coca-Cola, Pepsi) in two of the world’s toughest sectors: soft drinks and confectionery. It also does more than two-thirds of its business in America, where its Dr Pepper brand is regularly trounced by Coke and Pepsi. It cannot afford to stay parochial.
And Stitzer is not a newcomer who has been parachuted in. He has worked his way up Cadbury for 20 years and been based over here on and off for a chunk of them. He also knows the tussle the group has been through, long since torn away from its Quaker roots, but dogged by its old image — benevolent, paternalistic — like an echo over the centuries.
So when Stitzer announced his programme of factory closures and job cuts a fortnight ago to concentrate on organic growth, the predictable cries were raised: A Yank cutting 5,000 jobs? What would the founding fathers have thought? “Actually,” he says, “I think they would have wanted to have a sustainable and competitive business and we have to take the actions to keep Cadbury Schweppes that way. But we take them in a very Cadbury Schweppsian way — by being thoughtful and consultative and sensitive.”
It also needs to be quick on its feet. Selling sweets and fizzy drinks to an increasingly health-conscious world is fraught with difficulty. Stitzer feels the firm, which has been on a buying spree, has to improve efficiencies and shareholder returns, and while Cadbury is good at marketing, it has to work harder at being innovative: healthier drinks, sugar-free products, better ways to market, new ways of working. That includes using top sellers to get other items on the shelves (“ smart variety”).
“Our strategy is to take strong local and regional brands and appeal to regional and local customers. We think that our business model allows us to be uniquely competitively advantaged.”
I suggest his model shows him to be bravely bucking the trend towards global brands. But if he is worried, he doesn’t show it. Once he makes up his mind, he gets on with it. “I’m consultative, but not consensual,” he says of his own style. “I don’t believe in the tyranny of consensus.”
That style was forged watching his father, a YMCA executive, at work. The American YMCA values — sporty, Christian, inclusive — infuse Stitzer’s character. His dad’s “genetic German” love of order also rubbed off. And his mobility. His dad moved cities every three or so years. Todd and his younger brothers learnt to settle quickly.
That mix (competitive, efficient, adaptable) has marked Stitzer’s rise. By the time Sir Dominic Cadbury met him, working for a New York law practice that numbered Schweppes among its clients, he was a young “can-do lawyer” who wanted to make the leap into business. Stitzer laughs and says he was just under pressure from his wife to have “a more balanced style of life”.
Now he heads it all, and has to juggle a daughter left at college in Boston, and a son finishing school here, one home in Connecticut and another in Surrey.
When his family abandons him, returning to America every summer, he throws himself into sport. “I make an appointment with a tennis pro and hit balls every night,” he says.
Those thinking of offering him a game should know one thing: he paid his way through law school working as a tennis coach. He is very good and he plays to win.
That should reassure Cadbury Schweppes shareholders. They should just give him time to get his serve pumping.
