Tiger Brands announces new managing directors to head up business units

The company has simplified its organisational structure into six business units, all reporting to the CEO. They are Bakeries; Grains; Culinary; Snacks, Treats & Beverages; Home and Personal Care (HPC) & Baby; and Tiger Brands International.

The newly appointed managing directors are:

Quinton Swart – managing director: Bakeries

Swart has a track record in the performance turnaround of business units, and extensive experience and expertise in financial, strategic, manufacturing and marketing and sales environments.

His professional career spans 20 years, occupying senior management and executive leadership roles at JSE-listed companies with a global footprint, including Sasol and Nampak. He was a non-executive board member at various companies within the Nampak Group.

Swart is adept at managing highly specialised business teams within South Africa and the rest of Africa. During his tenure at Nampak, he had executive oversight of 10 business units in seven countries. In 2016, he was appointed managing director for Nampak’s Zambia and Malawi operations and later led the organisation’s Paper and Eastern Africa Division and Plastics Division in South Africa. He led the business value optimisation of Nampak’s Plastics Division and was instrumental in the financial turnaround of its businesses in key African markets, including Zambia, Kenya and Malawi.

Swart was part of the management and coordination of one of the largest joint venture merger applications assessed by the South African Competition Commission on behalf of Sasol. Later he led Sasol’s Oil Strategy and Organisational Development project focusing on the review of strategy, business processes and organisation structure.

Swart has racked up numerous organisation business awards, including Business of the Year; Innovation Team of the Year; Marketing and Sales Team of the Year and Best Safety Performance, at Nampak.

Liezel Holmes – managing director: Grains

Holmes has a solid foundation in marketing with a comprehensive understanding of market dynamics and consumer behaviour. She began her professional career at Tiger Brands 20 years ago as a young graduate. She has since held roles across multiple business units specialising in marketing, customer marketing and customer management. Over this time, she has led cross-functional teams to implement effective business strategies and achieve growth targets in a cost-effective and innovative manner.

Holmes was pivotal in step-changing the business trajectory of the Tiger Brands Home and Personal Care and Baby business category.

Holmes has a proven ability to navigate complex business landscapes, drive growth and nurture innovation in an ever-evolving environment, making her an invaluable asset to the business.

She brings her wealth of knowledge of marketing, the Tiger Brands business, as well was her strategic acumen to her role as managing director of the Grains business unit.

Dumo Mfini – managing director: Culinary

Mfini returns to Culinary following an earlier stint in 2022 as acting managing director of the business cluster. During his time acting in the position, Dumo helped steer the business towards sustainable growth. He is excited about continuing where he left off as he reunites with the team.

He joined Tiger Brands in 2016 and has held several senior leadership positions across the business, including managing director: Cereals. He is credited with fast-tracking the launch of strategic innovations for the category, including Jungle Cornflakes and Jungle Oat Drinks.

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For his role in leading the successful recovery of Tiger Brands’ Enterprise Food division, and later the Mergers and Acquisitions team which managed the sale of this business, Mfini was recognised as Tiger Brands Leader of the Year in 2020. He and his team also received the Team Execution Excellence Award for their work.

With a passion for developing young talent, Mfini led the accreditation of Tiger Brands as a South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) Chartered Accountant training office.

He continues to play an active role as a CA Training Officer in supporting and monitoring the Tiger Brands CA training programme (SAICA articles). He was recognised as a finalist in the SAICA Top 35 under 35 in 2019.

Grant Pereira – managing director: Snacks & Treats and Beverages

Pereira has extensive experience in multi-brand, multi-product innovations and has been at the forefront of impactful marketing strategies on a national and international scale. He has spearheaded the turnaround of brands at organisations he has worked for, as well as built brand awareness, boosted target market engagement, driven revenue growth, attracted new customers and developed solutions that cater to evolving customer preferences.

Pereira joined Tiger Brands as category managing director of Snacks & Treats in 2022. Prior to this, he had a successful 12-year career at The South African Breweries (SAB) and Anheuser-Busch InBev Africa (AB InBev Africa) in leadership roles spanning Marketing and Finance. Grant was previously a Group Operations Executive at Mvelaphanda Group Limited, a diverse industrial service group.

Recent highlights of Pereira's career include re-energising Africa's biggest beer brand, Carling Black Label with multiple award-winning campaigns, including a Cannes Grand Prix and growing the brand’s #NoExcuse campaign to promote positive masculinity in the fight against gender-based violence. He led AB InBev Africa’s "Beyond Beer" portfolio, which includes the highly successful Brutal Fruit and Flying Fish brands.

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For Tiger Brands, Pereira has led the successful growth and market share gains of its Maynards and Jungle Energy Bars brands.

Ismail Nanabhay – managing director: HPC (Home and Personal Care) and Baby

Nanabhay joined Tiger Brands in 2018 as marketing director: Beverages leading a team that introduced exciting product innovations for Oros, Roses, Brookes and Energade.

In 2021, Nanabhay was recognised at Tiger Brands for his innovative vision and divergent thinking to increase competitiveness within the Beverages category. In November 2021, he was appointed acting managing director of Beverages with the category sustaining volume growth under his leadership. Soon after, he was confirmed in the role of managing director: Beverages and the category has since achieved solid growth under his leadership.

Nanabhay’s professional career spans 29 years working for multinationals, including Coca-Cola, BP and Castrol, across Southern and Central Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Polycarp Igathe – managing director: Tiger Brands International (TBI)

Igathe is a seasoned business executive with 28 years of experience in commercial and operations management, strategy, and M&A integration. He has successfully served at the c-suite level and in managing director roles in blue chip organisations across multiple private and public industries and sectors on the African continent, including FMCG, Internet Service Provision, Oil & Gas, Banking, Financial Services, as well as Government.

Igathe has comprehensive insight into the competitive sub-Saharan Africa trading environment. As Tiger Brands chief growth officer – Rest of Africa, a role he was appointed to in January 2022, the Tiger Brands International division has recorded a stellar growth trajectory.

Igathe began his professional career as a management trainee at Queensland Health in Brisbane, Australia. He has held senior management roles at Coca-Cola SABCO Kenya. For Tiger Brands, he served as regional managing director: East Africa in 2008 - 2013. Other notable roles include Deputy Governor of Nairobi City; managing director at Equity Bank Kenya; executive vice president of sales and marketing at Vivo Energy in Africa; and group chief commercial officer at Equity Bank Holdings Limited.

He has served as non-executive chairman and non-executive director for various industry bodies. This includes Chairman of the Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Agency (KACA) and Chairman of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM).

“Tiger Brands has a strong leadership and talent pipeline. This is evident in the appointment of the new managing directors who are internal to the company, with credible leadership experience and a track record of excellence in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector,” says Tjaart Kruger, Tiger Brands CEO.

In December 2023, Kruger announced that the company would prioritise the implementation of a new operating model to enable sustainable growth, restore focus into the operations and enable agile decision-making.

“Our portfolio includes some of South Africa’s most loved and ionic brands and accounts for almost 30% of the South African grocery basket. With the leadership team in place and a simplified organisation to deliver on our priorities with focus, we will work with renewed intensity and urgency on ensuring that we refocus our portfolio, remove complexity and restore cost leadership while ensuring our brands remain relevant to our consumers,” says Kruger.