Heineken launches its relaunch by putting its faith in the coffee manager

Heineken has announced Rafael Oliveira as its new CEO, in a bid to counter sluggish demand in an increasingly sober market. He is due to join the company in October to fill the position left vacant following the departure of Dolf van den Brink, who had been with the Dutch company for 28 years, six of them as CEO.

The new chief executive is 51 years old and marks a new direction for Heineken, which had previously always appointed from within to fill the role.

Oliveira is leaving JDE Peet’s, which has been acquired by Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., after less than two years at the helm. The Dutch multinational is rewarding him for his move from coffee to beer with 346,300 shares, worth almost 25 million euros.

The company expects this appointment to strengthen Heineken’s high-performance culture, with a focus on simplification, more rigorous resource allocation and the implementation of the group’s plan to achieve up to €500 million in annual productivity savings.

Heineken therefore appears to be looking for a lifeline to help it navigate the turbulent waters of the alcohol industry. Between 2019 and 2025, alcohol consumption fell at a compound annual rate of 2 per cent, according to an analysis carried out by IWSR. The trend seeing consumers increasingly turn to non-alcoholic drinks appears to be the result of a greater focus on health, increasingly tight household budgets and a generational shift in attitudes towards alcohol consumption.