Heineken Hired a Financial Surgeon.
Not a Brewer. Not a marketer.
The nomination of Rafael Oliveira as Heineken’s next CEO goes beyond a standard leadership handover. It feels like a confession. The Supervisory Board has admitted that the skills to fix this business cannot be found inside it.
Oliveira’s background does not read like a brewer’s CV. Nor a marketer’s. It reads like a blueprint for what Heineken needs. Capital discipline. Retailer negotiation muscle. The ability to simplify a business that has grown too complex to run efficiently.
Reading his career in sequence tells you how he will run Heineken. And what is coming next?
