- Ahold named Kerry Underhill to be the company’s senior vice president, corporate communications, effective July 1, reporting to president/CEO Anders Moberg. Underhill, most recently managing director at Deutsche Bank A.G. in London, will be responsible for corporate affairs, food safety and consumer affairs, investor relations, issue management, media relations and marketing & internal communications.
- ACNielsen has named Robert I. Tomei to be president of Global Consumer Panel Services (CPS), a new strategic business unit formed to better leverage what the company views as its “industry-leading panel capabilities on a global scale.”
According to a statement released by the company, “the formation of the global CPS business unit comes at a time when ACNielsen is dramatically expanding its global panel capabilities. In the U.S., ACNielsen is in the midst of a two-year MegaPanel initiative that will expand its Homescan™ panel from 61,000 to 125,000 households by the end of this year. The expanded panel, currently at 91,500 households, is enabling the launch of a number of specialty panels, the introduction of new services to measure retailer equity among consumers and their motivations for buying new products, and improved coverage of such fast-growing retail channels as dollar stores, warehouse club stores and other specialty stores.
Tomei joined ACNielsen in 1994 from Bristol-Myers Squibb as vice president of Homescan Marketing for both the U.S. and Global. In 1999, he was promoted to lead ACNielsen U.S. Marketing, and in 2001, became chief marketing officer for the VNU Marketing Information group and ACNielsen Global. In 2003, Tomei was appointed general manager of the U.S. Homescan business, and asked to lead the MegaPanel expansion initiative.
