Patrick Cescau

Patrick Cescau (born 27 September 1948) is a French businessman and a former chief executive of Unilever. He was the first combined chief executive of the English (originally Lever Brothers) and Dutch parts (originally Margarine Unie) of Unilever. Since 2013, he has been the chairman of the InterContinental Hotels Group. Early life Cescau was born on 27 September 1948 in Paris. He was the son of Louise and Pierre Cescau. He earned a degree in business from ESSEC Business School in 1971. He subsequently earned an MBA from INSEAD. Career Cescau joined Unilever France in 1973. In 1980 he became financial controller of Unilever Germany at Union Deutsche Lebensmittelwerke in Hamburg, which makes the Sanella margarine. From 1984 to 1986 he was based in Rotterdam. From 1986 to 1989 he was financial controller of Unilever Indonesia. From 1989 to 1991 he was at Unilever Portugal. In 1999, Cescau became finance director of Unilever. In August 2000 Unilever announced it would split into two divisions – one for food, and the other for personal care products – whereby in January 2001 he became the Foods Division director (president, food), and Keki Dadiseth became in charge of the personal care division. Alexander Kemner had been in charge of its foods division.