British American Tobacco Plc (LON:BATS) has announced that Soraya Benchikh is stepping down from her role as Chief Financial Officer and from the Board of Directors of the Company with effect from 26 August 2025. Soraya will remain available to support the transition until 31 December 2025.
A recruitment process to identify a permanent successor to the role of Chief Financial Officer is being launched. Javed Iqbal, who is currently Director, Digital and Information, will take on the role of interim Chief Financial Officer. Javed recently acted as the Company’s Interim Finance Director from May 2023 until April 2024.
Tadeu Marroco, British American Tobacco Chief Executive, commented:
“Soraya has made a significant contribution to BAT, having worked in various roles within the Group over many years. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Soraya for her contribution, most recently in her role as Chief Financial Officer since rejoining the Group in May 2024. We wish her all the best with her future plans.
As we set out at our recent results, our performance in the first half of the year was slightly ahead of our expectations, and we are firmly on track to deliver our full year guidance. With the right strategy we intend to continue to deliver on the profitable transformation of BAT, reflected in our stated ambitions for 2026 and beyond. We will update on our continued progress in our pre-close trading update in December.”
Soraya Benchikh commented:
“I am proud of my role in the significant progress since I joined BAT, as reflected in our recent results.
Further embedding financial discipline and putting New Categories on a path to accretive margins and sustainable profitability have been key contributions to that progress. This was made possible thanks to the incredibly talented and dedicated teams I have had the privilege to work with across BAT. Now is the right time for me to move on to my next transformation. I wish the BAT team every success in taking the business to the next level.”
Supplementary Information – Remuneration
All remuneration arrangements are consistent with the terms of the Directors’ Remuneration Policy approved by shareholders at the AGM in April 2025.
In accordance with section 430(2B) of the Companies Act 2006, information in respect of Soraya Benchikh’s departure from the Board will be available on bat.com in due course and will remain available until the Company’s Directors’ Remuneration Report in the Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2025 is made available.
