Antoine Dutheil de la Rochère

Marketing director for all the worldwide OTP business for JTI with the help of a dedicated team

Since June 2007, I am in charge for JTI of the Portuguese business.

Main tasks :
- Merge former JTI & Gallaher businesses
- Have the full team running (19 employees)
- Manage relation with importer / distributor
- Achieve top & bottom line targets through ad hoc actions

After the takeover of CITA by Gallaher early 2006, I was sent ot Madrid to restructure the whole Other Tobacco Products in Spain (OTP = cigars & Hand Rolling Tobacco) to turn it from a -4Mio€ EBIT to a profitable business in 3 years time.
Thanks to huge efforts, this was done in Year 1 using the following tools :
- dedicated sales & marketing team (25 persons)
- portfolio rationalization (from 170 reference to 70)
- Prices increases
- Cost cutting
- Marketing focus

I joined the Other Tobacco Products (OTP = cigars & Hand Rolling Tobacco) team of Gallaher right at the beginning of the division when it was decided that Gallaher should double its OTP sales by 2010 through organic & external growth.
I initiated different projects :
- Hamlet brand extension in order to meet Continental Europe consumers requirements
- Cigar launches in various countries in order to extend Hamlet footprint : Spain, Italy, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Czech, Benelux, Sweden
- Hand Rolling Tobacco launches in various countries : Spain, Portugal, Austria
- Marketing tools development

Following Seita & Tabacalera merger I was in charge of the integration of both cigarettes businesses in various Southern Europe markets : Canary Islands, Greece & Portugal.
Based in the Canary Islands my main task was to restructure the business in the islands in order to make it a cash generative market in order to develop businesses in other markets.
Canary Islands EBIT was X 3 to 5Mio€ in 2002 allowing to fuel the volume growth in Greece (+50%) and Portugal launches.
To to so I was leading a sales marketing team in the Canary Islands of 30 persons, a market manager in Greece and a market manager in Portugal.

Before Altadis creation I was in charge of Seita business in Spain through a JV Seita had at the time with Reemstsma.

My main task was to make sure the Seita interests in the JV were protected and reach both top line and bottom line targets with the help of the sales & marketing team of the JV I was co sharing.

Despite a tough environment results were break even for the first time in Spain for Seita.

During 3 years, based in Athens I was in charge of defending the company interests in the company working very closely with the local distributor PAPASTRATOS.

Building sales & Marketing plans together with the distributor, marketing & advertising agencies and making sure these plans were achieved was my daily task. In 3 years time top line was X 3 and after 3 years the business started to be cash generative.

In charge of the Gauloises Brand development in Central & Eastern Europe.

Actions achieved :
- Night activities design
- Specific advertising campaign design
- New launches preparation

In charge of pushing Altadis interest within the local distributor.

Based in Istanbul, I was in charge of launching Gauloises on the Turkish market in a very tough and changing environment, since the monopoly was abolished mid 1994, changing completely the rules of the game.

My daily tasks were to set up and implement the Sales & Marketing plans together with the local distributor.