Graeme Pitkethly

Graeme was Chief Financial Officer and a board member of Unilever PLC from 2015 to end 2023 and retired from Unilever in May 2024 after 22 years with the company.

Graeme is senior independent director and vice chair of Pearson PLC, the world’s leading global lifelong learning company and is a non-executive director of Sandoz Group AG, a leading biosimilars and generics company recently emerged from. Novartis. He chairs the audit committees of both companies and is motivated by increasing affordable access at scale - both in education with Pearson, and in medicines with Sandoz.

Graeme is also a trustee of the Leverhulme Trust, one of the largest and most innovative research funders in the UK, and is an adviser to both Watershed, the enterprise sustainability platform, and Strathclyde University’s Centre for Sustainable Development.

Graeme was a vice-chair of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (‘TCFD’) from inception until conclusion of the TCFD’s work in 2023.

Prior to becoming Unilever CFO Graeme was EVP and General Manager of its UK and Ireland business, and before this held various financial and commercial roles including CFO for Global Markets, Global Head of M&A, Head of Treasury, Pensions and Tax and CFO of Unilever Indonesia.

Having spent his early career in corporate finance and commercial roles in telecommunications with FLAG Telecom and at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Graeme is a Chartered Accountant with a degree in Applied Chemistry. Married, with two children, he enjoys ski touring, cycling and golf. With a passion for blues music, he is an enthusiastic, but poor guitarist.