With next P&G CEO chosen, will other top execs exit?

CINCINNATI — At least once a decade at Procter & Gamble a new chief executive is named, then high-powered executives that didn’t get the job begin to leave.

Last week’s announcement that David Taylor will become the company’s next leader sets the stage for some eventual high-profile departures. Others may see their chances improved to one day become CEO.

Adding a twist to the unfolding musical chairs: a leadership vacuum at Coty Inc., the New York beauty company that is merging next year with 43 brands being carved out of Procter & Gamble (PG). The maker of Rimmel cosmetics is acquiring P&G’s Wella hair care, CoverGirl makeup and other brands and has had difficulty finding its own new CEO, a position that pays $6 million.

P&G officials aren’t discussing future executive moves as A.G. Lafley begins the handoff to Taylor. But one contender who likely figured she was out of the running already has left: Melanie Healey, 54, the former head of North American operations, who announced her retirement in October 2014 and left the company June 30.

Seeking to reassure Wall Street, Lafley told analysts he will stay on as executive chairman for at least a year to smooth the transition. Given the importance of stability, it’s easy to imagine that P&G’s board wants Taylor, 57, to stay at least five years.

That’s a critical consideration because P&G typically taps a leader in his mid 50s for for chief executive. P&G’s oldest new CEO was Edwin Artzt, who was 59 in 1990. Lafley was 65 when he rode to the rescue in 2013 after Bob McDonald’s abrupt retirement, but he was 52 when he was first chosen in 2000.

P&G prides itself on promoting from within and carefully grooming its future leaders. Rising stars are nurtured and future assignments typically are mapped out several promotions ahead.

The result is a deep bench of high-powered, highly qualified talent to lead the different parts of the company — or the whole company.

Running huge divisions of P&G, Martin Riant, the global head of baby, feminine and family care, and Giovanni Ciserani, the global head of fabric and home care, were top contenders for chief executive.

In fiscal year 2014, Riant and Ciserani made more money than Taylor. They might make even more if P&G pays them to stay put.

In charge of P&G’s paper products, Riant has overseen Pampers diapers gobbling up market share with Swaddlers. He’s also overseen the Always panty-liner brand expand into the female incontinence category with Always Discreet.

But at 56, Riant doesn’t look likely to become an eventual P&G CEO unless Taylor’s tenure is unexpectedly cut short because of poor performance or health issues.

Ciserani continues to oversee the home-run rollout of Tide and Ariel Pods and Gain flings, which have caught the lion’s share of the highly lucrative and growing single-dose laundry category. At 53, he might still get a crack at chief executive.

Top lieutenants at P&G have faced this dance of the executives before. When McDonald was chosen to lead P&G in 2009, several top leaders left but at different times:

• Susan Arnold, then 55, the global president of P&G’s business units, departed shortly before the public announcement that McDonald was the next chief executive. She is now an executive at the Carlyle Group.

• Ed Shirley, vice chairman of global beauty and grooming, stayed until 2011 when he was about 54. He later became chief executive of Bacardi.

• Robert Steele, vice chairman of global health and well being, also stayed until 2011 until he was about 56. He is now an adviser at CVC Capital Partners.

• Werner Geissler, vice chairman of global operations, stayed on longer, retiring from P&G in late 2014, at age 61. He now is a partner at Advent International.

• Dimitri Panayoptopoulos, vice chairman of global household care, also stuck around. He retired early 2014 at age 62. He now is an adviser at the Boston Consulting Group.

While Wall Street and P&G insiders watch Taylor’s transition to the big chair in Cincinnati, another transformation is taking place in New York.

In a $15 billion deal, Coty is being supersized with the influx of dozens of labels being P&G is shedding. Roughly 10,000 P&G employees are going with those brands that include hair coloring, cosmetics and licensed fragrances.

Just before the transformative deal was announced, Coty called off hiring Elio Leoni Sceti, a frozen food executive, after the incoming chief executive “reconsidered.” Coty still is being led by its board chairman Bart Becht, who has been interim CEO since September 2014.

Becht, 59, has pledged to stay put as Coty consummates the merger. Becht, the former chief executive of London-based Lysol and Woolite-maker Reckitt Benckiser, took the helm after Coty’s previous chief executive, Michele Scannavini, quit for personal reasons after two years on the job.

Scannavini took over in 2012 after longtime Coty CEO Bernd Beetz retired just shy of his 62nd birthday.

Becht is a respected dealmaker and cost-cutter but not renowned for his beauty chops.

“The board asked me to stay to oversee the transition,” Becht told Reuters in July, adding a new leader for Coty could be named in the future but declined to elaborate. Becht told analysts when the merger was announced “a broader leadership team, which will come from both sides ... from Procter & Gamble and Coty.”

With Taylor’s ascension to chief executive at P&G, Patrice Louvet, is the company’s top beauty executive. Louvet, a P&G group president of a major business unit at age 50, might be a front-runner to succeed Taylor whenever he retires.

Unless Coty writes a huge check.

Still, Colleen E. Jay might be a more likely senior P&G executive for Coty to court to become its chief executive. At 52, she has more than a decade of beauty experience at P&G and she’s overseeing the business units being transitioned to Coty.

From 2012 to 2015, she was the global president of retail hair care and color, which includes Wella and Clairol brands.

The Coty deal may not close until as late as December 2016. P&G and Coty officials have declined to discuss which senior leaders if any might go to Coty.