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Procter & Gamble, the Gillette razors to Pampers nappies combine, is about to announce a long-term company man and former US parachute soldier, Robert McDonald, as its new chief executive.
The choice comes in stark contrast to its British rival Unilever which in selecting Paul Polman to replace Patrick Cescau as chief executive last year, went very much for an outsider.
P&G's board meets today to ratify the promotion of 55-year-old McDonald from chief operating officer to chief executive. He will replace Alan George Lafley — or “AG” as he prefers to be known — who turns 62 next week and has led P&G for the last nine years.
McDonald has been with the company for 29 years and faces one of the toughest consumer environments in living memory as he takes the top job. One of his first decisions will be whether to sell off Braun appliances and Duracell batteries which came as part of P&G's $57 billion (£35.3 billion) takeover of Gillette but are not seen as core businesses.
Insiders say he has already shown his skills in coping not only with recession in the US but also in recognising that the growth markets for consumer goods companies lie in distant emerging markets.
Under his guidance P&G has seen the biggest shake-up of its logistics and haulage business which is one of the largest in the US. He also spent much of the Nineties working in Asia and more recently announced plans to build 20 new factories mainly in developing countries.
Today's appointment will end a year-long public race for the top at P&G which was generally seen to have ended when MacDonald's main rival Susan Arnold, 55, who headed P&G's personal beauty business resigned in March.
Unilever's Polman is also a former P&G man having worked there for 27 before moving on to head Nestlé's US business. His task is to revive Unilever's fight back against P&G.
Both Lafley and McDonald are ex-Army and regularly referred to their military experience as they climbed the P&G coporate ladder. MacDonald first applied to West Point Military Academy, the US equivalent of Sandhurst, at the age of 11 and graduated from there in 1975 coming 13th out of a class of 875.
He became an army captain in the 82nd Airborne Division which he claimed to have joined because jumping out of airplanes paid an extra $110 on his monthly $330 salary. Today his pay is more like $220,000 a month.
