Joanne Wilson will become chief financial officer of Diageo, moving from the same role at WPP as the spirits maker continues its management overhaul. Bloomberg reports that Diageo announced the appointment on Wednesday, while Reuters had reported the move the day before. Wilson will replace Nik Jhangiani and is expected to join Diageo sometime next year; an exact start date was not given.
The move places a finance leader who has worked with Dave Lewis before into a company still working through a broad reset. Wilson and Lewis previously worked together at Tesco. At Diageo, Lewis is overseeing a $1 billion cost-cutting plan and a wider effort to respond to a prolonged period of weak growth. The appointment therefore changes the person in the finance seat while keeping the wider strategic context firmly in view.
A finance handoff inside a wider reset
Wilson has been WPP’s CFO for less than four years. WPP said she will remain in her current role while it searches for her successor, giving both companies a transition to manage rather than a same-day switch. Jhangiani joined Diageo as CFO in May 2024, briefly served as interim CEO, and later returned to the finance role.
Diageo did not publish a detailed mandate for Wilson in the available announcement, so the useful read is the one the sources support: she arrives as a seasoned finance chief at a business focused on discipline, simplification and renewed growth. The change follows World Acceptance’s own finance-to-CEO handoff for John Calmes Jr., another reminder that the finance seat can become the clearest vantage point for a broader leadership transition.
