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At the end of August, Todd Stitzer's tennis serve became faster than usual. “I had some good evening sessions on the tennis court,” he says, laughing. That was soon after Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft had met Roger Carr, Stitzer's chairman at Cadbury, to deliver the news that she would like to buy their company.
Since Kraft went public in early September, the opportunities for Stitzer — the Cadbury chief executive — to get any R and R have been few.
Now that Kraft has made its £9.8 billion bid formal, they've become even more infrequent.
For the coming weeks and possibly months, Stitzer will be engaged in a battle to convince Cadbury shareholders of the merits of sticking with a stand-alone confectionery maker and putting their faith in his management, rather than with Rosenfeld and her US food conglomerate.
Yesterday, Stitzer was in Uxbridge, briefing and reassuring 400 senior staff at Cadbury's headquarters.
While he can point to a good recent record and while Kraft's valuation has been widely dismissed as far too low, his task won't be easy.
The theory has to be that Rosenfeld is playing a long game. It's a tactic that Stitzer, a tennis coach in his youth, will recognise: a soft, opening serve, only to be followed by something altogether more substantial.
Stitzer is American. Indeed, some in the City suspect that he might quite like the idea of taking the money — he could make many millions from a Kraft takeover — and heading back to his native land.
He's tall and powerfully built and even now, at 57, he looks like the former college tennis champion who was good enough to be a pro.
He's prone to talking in US management-speak — something that does not always endear him to more direct-speaking Brits (one analyst said to me how he switched off at a presentation after Stitzer spoke of the “confectionery algorithm”).
So what does Stitzer say to the view that when all said and done, he might relish the chance to cash in and return to the US? His rebuttal is firm. “I've spent over 25 years at Cadbury. I'm happy to maintain its independence for the shareholders and for its great employees.”
As for being American, that won't wash either. “My wife, Marenda and I are naturalised British citizens. After being here for 10 years and not being able to vote we felt disconnected from the community around us. We like to think we live life with certain principles and one of those is playing our part in the community.”
Adds Stitzer: “I've lived in Britain longer than any place in my entire life. I've lived in my house in Surrey longer than any house I've ever lived in. I feel very connected with this country.”
The textbook delivery is a reflection of how he is — particularly when dealing with numbers and a City audience (in private he is more relaxed and funnier). His seriousness stems from his upbringing. “My father was a YMCA director, my mother was a nurse.”
It was a solidity that lent itself to Cadbury, a company famously founded by Quakers (at times he has been accused of taking Cadbury's heritage too seriously and, as a result, of behaving too cautiously). His family could trace their roots to Germany and there's no doubt the Germanic love of order has been passed to him.
So too, has the YMCA approach to life, of clean living, decency and faith. “We were taught to study to show thyself,” says Stitzer. “We were challenged always to be the best we could be.”
He went to Springfield College in Massachusetts, the traditional training ground for future YMCA and aid workers, then switched to law at nearby Harvard.
“I had an uncle who was a small-town lawyer in upstate New York and I admired him a lot. I thought the combination of skills required of a lawyer were right for me — writing, thinking and verbal skills — plus lawyers did a lot for the community.”
Stitzer could have been a professional tennis player. His father played to a high standard and Todd gave lessons to pay his way through law school. Did it cross his mind to join the professional tennis tour? “My father advised me you can only walk and talk at tennis for so long. After that, you've got nothing.”
From Harvard, he joined Lord, Day & Lord, a New York law firm that he says, conformed to the “Marxist theory of surplus value — the associates worked very hard, the partners made all the profits”.
He was contented enough but then Cadbury, a client, offered him a job as assistant general counsel for the US. Three factors made up his mind. “One, I admired the company and had always thought it a great place to work. Two, for three years in a row I'd been billing more than anyone else but my pay had stayed the same. Three, it seemed like an intelligent lifestyle decision to take a job with a different perspective on business.”
There was a fourth. He and his wife had just had their first child (they have two children, Parker and Kate) and the long hours he was working were losing their appeal. “My wife used to call [my firm] Lord, Day & Night — I was there all the time.”
When he said he was thinking of leaving, the firm told him he was “five years through an eight to 10-year journey, as they described it, to become partner'”. He told them they could keep it and went to Cadbury.
He moved the family to Connecticut and settled into an easier routine. But then “Dominic [Cadbury] said to me: What do you want to do when you grow up?' He also said: You can't get on at Cadbury Schweppes unless you've been in sales and marketing.'
“I had to do it, I had to make a move. I became head of marketing for US beverages, and I did some M&A. I took a chance; it was very exciting.”
By his own account, he found himself in charge of 25 to 30 “bright young marketing people”.
Says Stitzer: “I had to run at 120 miles per hour in order to keep up. I adopted the firehose method of management — I stood with my mouth open and they poured into it.”
For 20 years, from 1983, when he left legal practice, he worked his way up through the management ranks. Then, in 2003, he got the top job. His reign since then has not been entirely smooth.
He oversaw purchases, among them Adams, the US gum manufacturer and Green & Blacks, the British organic chocolate supplier.
But he had to contend with salmonella contaminating millions of chocolate bars and an accounting fraud in Nigeria. The company also experienced losses in Russia and China. And long before Kraft blew up he's had to deal with the presence of veteran US corporate raider, Nelson Peltz, on his share register.
For much of that period, Cadbury has been a potential takeover target. He's restructured the business entirely, made swingeing job cuts, streamlined the number of factories and offloaded the European and US soft drinks including Seven Up and Dr Pepper.
Through a programme he labelled Vision into Action, he's realigned Cadbury as a “pure play” confectionery firm, continuing to grow in its established locations but pushing into emerging markets.
Now comes Kraft. “It's true I've seen a lot of good and some not so good but shareholders want executives who can lead in difficult times and in positive times.”
And he adds: “Those six years have seen average annual revenue growth of more than 6%. We're experiencing growth in global share, in operating margins — on the normal measures of business success it's a record that speaks for itself.”
Cadbury's response to Kraft, he says, “is based on our path of continued improvement.
“We will stand up and describe to our shareholders how we can deliver value. We have an attractive plan of improvement to counter their offer.”
He refutes the suggestion that fatigue may set in. “For the last several weeks it's been a job-and-a-half and that will continue. We've a great team, we're confident and we're focused. There'll be no weariness at Cadbury.”
Stitzer is constrained in what he can say. “This is an important quarter of the year for Cadbury.
“We're entering the holiday season. What we're all focused on is producing the best defence, which is great performance.” He's got to go and say something similar to the staff. Before he leaves, he asks: “Do you play tennis?” I gulp. “Yes,” I say “after a fashion.” “We must play,” he says. I gulp again. “Yes,” I reply. “But only if I can be your doubles partner.”
