Newell Rubbermaid Appoints Juan Figuereo as CFO
Newell Rubbermaid, a global marketer of consumer and commercial products, has appointed Juan Figuereo as executive vice president (EVP) and chief financial officer (CFO). Figuereo is a former Wal-Mart and PepsiCo executive with significant experience in global general management, operations, and strategic mergers and acquisitions, in addition to senior financial leadership. He succeeds Patrick Robinson, who is taking early retirement.
Most recently, Figuereo was EVP and CFO of Cott Corporation, a large supplier of retailer-branded soft drinks, where he helped engineer a turnaround including significant gross margin expansion, cost reductions and a strengthening of the company’s balance sheet.
Previously, Figuereo helped Wal-Mart become the top foreign retailer in China as vice president of mergers and acquisitions at Wal-Mart International. He also helped the retailer enter five new countries in central America and strengthen its position as a top retailer in Brazil. Additionally, he played a key role in post-acquisition integration and in the design of Wal-Mart’s integration process for newly acquired businesses.
At PepsiCo, Figuereo held a number of key international positions, including vice president and managing director for Frito-Lay Dominican Republic; vice president of business integration for Frito-Lay Europe in London; vice president and CFO of Frito-Lay South Europe in Barcelona; vice president and CFO of Pepsi-Cola Bottling in Sao Paulo, Brazil; and vice president and CFO of Pepsi-Cola Latin America. He led the largest business re-engineering project in PepsiCo Europe’s history to integrate Frito-Lay’s manufacturing and supply chain operations across the entire region. He also was a critical player in the financial and operational turnaround of Pepsi-Cola Bottling in Brazil, including restructuring the organisation’s manufacturing, sales and distribution networks.
Figuereo began his career at Arthur Andersen & Co in Miami, specialising in banking, insurance and information systems consulting. A certified public accountant (CPA), he received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Public Accounting from Florida International University.