Patrick Cescau

Patrick Jean-Pierre Cescau (born 27 September 1948) is a French businessman and a former Chief Executive of Unilever Group. He was the first combined Chief Executive of the English (originally Lever Brothers) and Dutch parts (originally Margarine Unie) of Unilever. He is noted for promoting more corporate ethics at Unilever.

He was born in Paris.

He obtained a degree in Business from ESSEC Business School (L'École supérieure des sciences économiques et commerciales). Later he obtained an MBA from INSEAD.

He 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 1984-86 he was based in Rotterdam. From 1986-89 he was Financial Controller of Unilever Indonesia. From 1989-91 he was at Unilever Portugal.

In 1999 he 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.

In October 2004 he became Chairman of Unilever PLC, staying until April 2005. From April 2005 to 31 December 2008 he was Group Chief Executive of Unilever Group, the third biggest food company in the world.

In February 2005 it had been announced that both the Unilever PLC and Unilever N.V. groups would be led by a single Chief Executive, of which he was chosen, stationed at Unilever House in London. In 2008 his salary was £972,000.

In January 2005 he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur (Legion of Honour). He has a German-born wife, Ursula, and a son and daughter, born in the late 1970s. His son works for AKQA in London, having attended the University of the Pacific (United States) and the Ex'pression College for Digital Arts. His family lives in Chelsea.

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