Baxters Food Group has appointed Bill King, seen as right-hand man to chairman and chief executive Audrey Baxter, to the new post of deputy chief executive.
Baxters Food Group has appointed Bill King, seen as right-hand man to chairman and chief executive Audrey Baxter, to the new post of deputy chief executive.
King joined Baxters in 2003 from Chivas Brothers where he was European supply chain director, and was promoted to chief operating officer last year after a management upheaval.
Baxter restructured the company into a two-tier board system 18 months ago, after admitting candidly that the previous structure she had put in place for the group had "failed" and had seen margins and profits tumble.
The Speyside-based group abandoned centralised decision-making and gave an operational board full legal responsibilities for day-to-day activities, setting a non-executive board above to oversee strategy, finance and corporate governance.
Baxter said at the time: "It was a huge disappointment for me as I had tried to put in place a structure where I could widen the responsibility for managing the company and it was not successful."
Since then King has had overall responsibility for all production sites.
Baxter commented: "As the company continues to expand it is essential we have a strong management team in place to respond to the global challenges we currently face."
She went on: "Bill has helped develop Baxters throughout his tenure as chief operating officer and this new appointment will enable him to implement our long-term strategic plans to expand in the UK and internationally."
On whether the appointment signified any intended change to Audrey Baxter's role, a spokesman for the group said: "This recog-nises the expansion of the group in the UK and across Canada, Australia and Poland, and it was deemed to be a more appropriate title."
The 2007 accounts of the 140-year-old family company showed pre-tax profit edging up from to £6.7m, still almost £1m below its 2005 level, on sales up marginally to £112.8m.
