UK – Global drinks company Diageo’s group pensions and benefits director, Steve Mingle, is to depart at the end of 2002.

He joined Grand Metropolitan in 1996, which merged with Guinness to form Diageo. Since then the business has become more streamlined and Mingle feels that “his skills and experience could no longer be utilised within the role”.

Mingle is undecided what he will do next. “Ideally, I won’t start working again until late spring, and I’m being absolutely open-minded about what to do next,” he says. There are “a number of different avenues” available to him.

A formal announcement regarding Steve’s successor will be made shortly, says Diageo.

Diageo’s pension fund won the award for Fund Structure and Administration in the UK for the second time at the IPE-Awards ceremony for pension fund excellence held in Amsterdam in November 2002.