Nini Andrade Silva
Paulo Abrantes
Nicolas Payet
Managing director of Pernod Ricard Portugal
He was born in France and graduated from the KEDGE Business School, in Marseilles. Nicolas Payet joined the Pernod Ricard Group in 1996. In 2002 he took on the role of International Regional Manager at Chivas Brothers, Ltd., where, in 2004, he became regional manager for Western Europe. He has also represented the Group in Paris and Hong Kong. He was Travel Retail commercial vice-president when, in 2017, he took the post of managing director of Pernod Ricard Portugal.
You have been responsible for Pernod Ricard Portugal since 2017. What is your assessment of this first year?
This first year has been tremendous! Moving from Miami to Lisbon represented a significant change of life from a personal and professional standpoint. From a professional perspective this first year has been amazing: the team at Pernod Ricard Portugal is extremely dedicated and hardworking and animated by a strong entrepreneurial spirit. From a personal standpoint I have spent the last 12 months in "discovery mode”: learning about the Portuguese way of life and culture. There is still a lot for me to discover!
Does the Portuguese market differ from other markets?
The Portuguese spirits market is very interesting: the share of premium consumption is high in comparison to European standards, and it’s an on-trade market, a channel that represents the majority of total spirits consumption. When it comes to imported spirits, this whisky dominated market was quick to embrace the gin trend and rum is already making its revolution here. The Portuguese spirits market is also about a more traditional type of daytime consumption and for this market we have our brand Macieira, which is currently enjoying strong momentum.
What goals do you have to achieve in Portugal?
From a brand and business perspective, we have both some positions to defend and some gains to make to achieve leadership. Jameson and Beefeater have been developed with success and are now at a stage where we need to defend our distribution and increase rotations. The Prestige Portfolio has also been a focus point, but we have not yet acquired our fair share of the prestige market and this will be a point of focus going forward.
«Our vision is to be créateurs de convivialité, meaning we advocate conviviality through responsible drinking»
How can you reconcile the desire to increase sales with raising awareness about responsible drinking?
Corporate social responsibility is at the heart of everything we do. Our vision is to be créateurs de convivialité, meaning we advocate conviviality through responsible drinking. From a prevention stand point we work very closely with the industry players within the ANEBE association to ensure we collectively encourage responsible drinking.
What form does the corporate social philosophy advocated by the company take?
Sustainability and responsibility are an integral part of everything we do. We address our endeavors to promote responsible drinking, which we tackle mostly via the aforementioned programs within the scope of the ANEBE trade association. We also act on protecting our planet. We address several initiatives to diminish our environmental footprint, under an umbrella project which we call Green Office.
