Anora: Kirsi Puntila appointed CEO

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 3/5/2025 at 7:34 am EET.

Anora announced last night that Kirsi Puntila, who has been the head of the Spirits segment for the past few years, will take over as CEO with immediate effect. Jacek Pastuszka already announced last October that he would step down after just one year in the role (our comment here), but he stayed on until a new CEO was appointed. We see the internal recruitment as positive in many ways and Puntila as a logical choice for CEO. The appointment is unlikely to bring any significant changes to the company's strategy.

Puntila is the most logical and good internal choice

Kirsi Puntila has been with Anora/Altia since 2014, having previously worked for the Pernod Ricard group. The Spirits segment, which Puntila has led in recent years, is clearly the larger of Anora's segments in terms of profitability and has performed relatively well in recent years, while the Wine segment has performed poorly. Against this background, we believe that Puntila is a logical and good choice. Thanks to the internal recruitment, Puntila will be able to start in her new role immediately, and the company will no longer have to go through the unpleasant interim phase it has been going through since Pastuszka announced his departure in October. In general, we also think it is good that the company has continuity in the CEO position. Puntila will continue to head the Spirits segment for the time being until a successor is appointed.

The outgoing CEO, Jacek Pastuszka became CEO of Anora in the fall of 2023, replacing Pekka Tennilä, who had to leave the company at that time. Pastuszka had a clear mission and goal to improve Anora's profitability, which had fallen to a very low level. However, this was not successful, and the company's board chair emphasizes that Puntila will continue the short-term efforts to improve profitability and the balance sheet. As such, we do not expect Puntila's appointment to bring significant strategic changes, but the company is certainly in need of operational improvements where the new leader may have some new ideas. We will hopefully hear more about this in the context of the Q1 results in May.