Unilever Appointments

Unilever PLC
08 January 2004

                             UNILEVER APPOINTMENTS

Unilever announced today that Harish Manwani (50), currently president of Home
and Personal Care, Latin America, will succeed Charles Strauss as president of
Home and Personal Care, North America, with effect from March 1 2004. It was
announced earlier this week that Mr Strauss, a director of Unilever, will retire
from the boards of Unilever N.V. and Unilever PLC in May.

Also from March 1, Anton Lenstra (55), currently president of Africa Business
Group, will succeed Mr Manwani as president HPC Latin America and Doug Baillie
(48), currently chairman of Lever Pond's South Africa, will in turn take up the
role as president of Africa Business Group.

Mr Strauss will continue as chairman of Unilever's North America Committee until
his retirement.

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January 8 2004



Attached: biographical details of appointees


Biographical Details

Doug Baillie (dob: Nov 19, 1955)-- born and educated in Zimbabwe. Graduated with
a B Comm degree from the University of Natal and joined Unilever in South Africa
in 1978.

Doug held various sales and marketing positions, culminating in a secondment to
Lever Rexona in Australia in 1987. He returned to South Africa in late 1988 to
take up the sales director's position followed by a spell as marketing director.
In 1994 he moved to London to join the Personal Products Co-ordination and
became regional liaison member for Africa, Middle East, Central and Eastern
Europe and Turkey, before moving to vice president, Home and Personal Care for
the Africa Business Group.

He was appointed managing director, Lever Pond's South Africa in 1997; national
manager, Unilever South Africa in May 2000; and chairman, Lever Pond's South
Africa in 2002. He currently serves on the Marketing Federation of South Africa,
Advertising Standards Association, Consumer Goods Council and South Africa
Foundation Boards. He is also a member of the President's Big Business Working
Group.

Doug is married with four children.



Anton Lenstra (dob: Jan 6, 1949) -- got his bachelor's degree in social sciences
at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 1973 before going on to
complete his MBA at the University of Delft in 1976. He started his career with
Procter & Gamble in marketing and sales, progressing up to the level of
marketing director. In 1984, he left Procter to set up his own selective
sampling, market research and consultancy business, which he sold in 1988 to AC
Nielsen. The following year, Anton joined Unilever Holland as managing director
of de Fenix, a detergents company. In mid 1991, this company merged with Lever
Sunlight with Anton becoming chairman of the new operation.

In January 1992 he was appointed national manager in Taiwan and in August the
following year, he became responsible for China and Hong Kong, with the clear
objective to build a substantial Unilever presence in this part of the world. In
mid 1997, Anton returned to Europe as executive vice president, Home and
Personal Care, responsible for the Lever Faberge operations in 10 countries. In
January 2001, Anton took over as president, Africa Regional Group based in
London.

He is married with two children, aged 21, and 23.



Harish Manwani (dob: June 15, 1953) -- graduated with an honours degree in
Statistics and Economics from Bombay University and joined Hindustan Lever as a
management trainee after completing his MBA in 1976. After working on several
marketing and sales assignments, including a two year secondment with Unilever
Export in the UK, he became divisional vice president, marketing, for the
Detergents business.

Harish joined the board of Hindustan Lever in 1995 as director responsible for
the Personal Products business. He was also chairman of the wholly owned
subsidiary, Lakme Lever, and director of the joint venture, Kimberly Clark
Lever. In addition, he held regional responsibility as the category leader for
personal products for the then Central Asia and Middle East (CAME) Business
Group. He was also a member of the international category boards for oral, skin
care and hair categories.

During his tenure in India, Harish was associated with various Industry bodies:
he was a member of the board of governors of Advertising Standards Council of
India, a member of the executive council of Indian Society of Advertisers; and
vice president of the Indian Soap & Toiletries Makers Assoc. In 2000 he attended
the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at Harvard Business School and moved to
the UK as senior vice president for the Hair Care and Oral Care categories. In
early 2001 he was appointed president of HPC Latin America Business Group.

Harish is married and has two teenage daughters.

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