9 October 2018
Omar Group is delighted to announce the appointment of Graeme Craig as its new Chief Executive. With the group’s continued growth and expansion, this position will provide additional senior management bandwidth and assist with further growth and development across the businesses’ five portfolio brands.
Graeme’s appointment sees Dean Westmoreland, who has operated in the dual role of Group Chairman and Chief Executive for the past 19 months, step away from the Chief Executive aspect of his role. Dean will, however, remain firmly within the heart of the business as Group Chairman.
Given Omar’s impressive 27% compound annual growth over the past three years, the decision was made to recruit a high-calibre, customer-focused business leader as Chief Executive to support the continued advancement of the business.
Graeme joined the group on Monday 8th October from Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewer, where he had been Managing Director of the brewery for 4 years. Prior to Shepherd Neame, he held a number of roles with PepsiCo and has over 25 years of commercial experience, across sales, marketing, production and logistics. Graeme is a seasoned business leader with an exceptional track record in business strategy implementation and negotiation. Delivering strong sales growth, consistently above market and competitor performance, Graeme’s tenacity and drive contributed towards the growth of Shepherd Neame.
Dean Westmoreland, Group Chairman commented: “In Graeme, I believe we have found a high quality individual with the necessary skills, experience and approach to support Omar’s continued growth and development. I look forward to working with him, he is an experienced customer-focused commercial leader who will help drive our business to the next level. Whilst I will be stepping away from my role as Chief Executive, I will remain in place as Group Chairman, and continue to be 100% committed to Omar and the team to ensure the businesses’ on-going success.”
Graeme Craig, Chief Executive commented: “I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to join such a highly successful team and look forward to working closely alongside Dean and the rest of the senior management team who have delivered genuinely market leading performance in recent years. I look forward to the challenge of taking the business to the next level – working with the team to improve our products, processes, people and customer satisfaction. It’s exciting times for Omar and I’m extremely proud to now be a part of it”.