Michael Wood is co-founder and Director of Aperio, a business consulting company focused on accelerating growth of FMCG brands in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Michael has many years international experience where he held the positions of Marketing Director, Sales Director and Managing Director with the Gillette company and Procter & Gamble.
Michael is an accomplished business professional with highly successful General Management experience in multi-national and multi-cultural environments in Western Europe, Russia & Africa. He has lived and worked in UK, France, Belgium, Russia and South Africa. He has areputation for building strong teams, organisations and delivering results in challenging environments.
Michael heads up Aperio and leads key sales, marketing and strategic projects for multinational and regional FMCG companies. He lends his extensive sales and marketing experience to the sector, advising organisations on market entry, company strategic evaluation, re-engineering, commercial strategy and brand strategy.
Michael started his career with the luxury pen company Waterman based in France as an area export manager responsible for Middle East, Eastern Europe and world-wide duty free. In 1994 the Gillette Company appointed Michael to start Gillette's business in the Former Soviet Union Republics, moving to Moscow in the early '90s was challenging but immensely rewarding both professionally and personally.
Michael was then promoted to Sales Director Gillette Russia; this coincided with the Russian economic meltdown, despite a very tough start the Gillette Russia business grew to the top 5 markets globally. In 2003 Michael was appointed Managing Director for Gillette South Africa; he was successful in reorganising the business and doubling the profitability of Gillette South Africa.
Procter & Gamble acquired Gillette in 2006; Michael remained with P&G to strengthen his marketing skills and was initially appointed as Marketing Director, P&G Fabric & Home Care Global Business Unit in Brussels, where he oversaw the growth of the fabric care brands into Africa. He was then appointed as Marketing Director,South East Africa (based in Johannesburg), with a mandate to develop new businesses in Africa.He was responsible for the P&G Paper business - Pampers &Always across South East Africa - and also for developing P&G's fabric care business in the region.
In 2009 Michael left P&G to set up Aperio and has never looked back. Aperio continues to grow from strength-to-strength and he heads up a team of 30 highly capable, multi-functional consultants with significant multi-national FMCG experience in South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa.
