Iván Menezes, who led a liquor giant, dies at 63

Ivan Menezes, who as chief executive of the Diageo liquor corporation used his astute knowledge of the drinking public to help the company become a global colossus, died on June 7 in London. He was 63 years old.

The cause was complications from emergency surgery for a stomach ulcer, a Diageo spokesman said.

Diageo is ubiquitous in the world of alcohol, selling more than 200 brands in more than 180 countries, including Smirnoff vodka, Tanqueray gin, Johnnie Walker Scotch, Captain Morgan rum and Guinness beer. In some categories of spirits it has the highest global net sales.

Mr. Menezes (pronounced muh-NAY-zess) received marketing training and closely studied consumer sentiment. For him, the spirits provided what he called “accessible luxury” to patrons: a taste of the good life even in a shaky economy.

“The example that I like to use is that if you are an average New Yorker, it can be difficult to spend a night at the Four Seasons,” Menezes said of that upscale restaurant in an interview with The New York Times in 2005“But you could go into the Four Seasons Bar and enjoy a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue Label on the rocks.”

Mr Menezes, who became CEO in 2013, has been with Diageo since its inception. He was Guinness’s director of strategy in 1997 when the merged company with Grand Metropolitan PLC, which owns Burger King and Pillsbury, creating a conglomerate reportedly valued at $33 billion.

After the merger, he became global marketing director for the company’s beverage division in 1998.

One of his first challenges was to make Johnnie Walker appeal to a new generation. It wasn’t so much that young drinkers didn’t like the taste of blended Scotch, but rather that the drink’s traditional tartan image felt stale, Diageo’s market research found.

“We are losing older drinkers by buckets but only gaining new ones by thimbles,” Mr Menezes said in 1999 in the Scottish newspaper The Scotsman. “We will all benefit if everyone focuses on building brands and making their brands relevant to younger consumers.”

That year, Mr. Menezes spent £100 million (about $224 million in today’s dollars) to revamp Johnnie Walker’s image with an international advertising campaign developed by the Bartle Bogle Hegarty agency.

The campaign introduced the slogan “Keep Walking” and featured three TV spots, including one featuring actor Harvey Keitel entered a coliseum full of lions while talking about overcoming stage fright; another showed the French tightrope walker Ramon Kelvink walking the tightrope between buildings.

“With this campaign, we hope to build an emotional bond with the consumer through the universal territory of inspiring personal advancement,” Mr. Menezes told Campaign magazine.

A quarter of a century later, Johnnie Walker, one of the most popular Scotch whiskey brands on the planet, still uses the slogan “Keep Walking.” Diageo said the value of Johnnie Walker’s retail sales increased from about $5.1 billion in 2012 to more than $8 billion in 2022.

Under Menezes, Diageo expanded its tequila offering, marketing its Bushmills brand of Irish whiskey to Casa Cuervo in 2014 in exchange for full control of his Don Julio tequila brand and $408 million in cash. the company too bought Casamigos, the tequila brand created by George Clooney and two friends, Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman, in a 2017 deal worth up to $1 billion. Tequila is now the company’s second-biggest seller, after Scotch.

As CEO, Mr. Menezes removed a layer of regional management, facilitating communication between the global company and country-based companies and reducing its employee base from around 36,000 to nearly 28,000. reducing Diageo’s carbon emissions and promoting greater diversity in the workforce by recruiting more women at senior levels. He had planned to retire this year; the new CEO is Debra Crew.

She takes the helm as the company faces a recent lawsuit brought by Sean Combs, the rapper known as Diddy, who accused the company of racial bias for neglecting the vodka and tequila brands they co-own. Diageo denied Combs’ allegations, saying in a statement that “we are confident that the facts will show that he has been treated fairly.”

Ivan Manuel Menezes was born on July 10, 1959 in Pune, India, the son of Nina and Manuel Menezes. His mother taught music and French; His father was Chairman of the Indian Railway Board.

After graduating from St. Mary’s High School in Mount Abu, India, Mr. Menezes earned a BA in Economics in 1979 from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

He then studied business policy and marketing at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and took a job with Nestlé in New Delhi in 1981.

He moved to the United States to study business administration at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, completing his master’s degree in 1985. He then took a job as a business and management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, based in Chicago and London. .

Mr. Menezes was Whirlpool’s vice president of group marketing in Northern Italy from 1992 until he left for Guinness in 1997.

He held various other positions at Diageo, including chief operating officer and president of the company’s North American operations, before joining succeeding Paul S. Walsh as CEO.

He is survived by his wife, Shibani, with whom he lived in London; two brothers, Victor, former Chairman and CEO of Citibank, and Michael; a sister, Marisa; a daughter, Rohini Menezes; and a son, Nikhil.

Mr. Menezes, who was a British and American citizen as well as a foreign national of India, was knighted by King Charles III in January for his services to business and equality.

When it came to his own taste in drinks, Mr. Menezes preferred the classics like a Johnnie Walker Black and soda, or a pint of Guinness, although, as he said during an appearance on CNBC on St. Patrick’s Day in 2007, sometimes one was not enough.

“What I will say about Guinness,” he said, “my favorite pint is always my next pint.”