Treasury Wine Estates CFO to step down
Stuart Boxer has announced he will retire from the role of chief financial and strategy officer of Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) from September, as the company strives to claw back more than AU$100 million.
Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) is seeking a new chief financial officer following Stuart Boxer’s announcement that he will hang up his gloves from 30 September 2026. According to TWE, the search for Boxer’s successor will be both “internal and external”, and Boxer will stay on during and after the hunt “to ensure a smooth handover”.
The new hire will be responsible for the finances of the wine company, which owns brands including Penfolds, DAOU, Frank Family Vineyards, Beringer, Stags’ Leap, 19 Crimes, Squealing Pig, Matua, Blossom Hill, Wolf Blass, and Lindeman’s.
Six-year tenure
Boxer joined TWE in 2020 as chief strategy and corporate development officer before being promoted to chief financial officer in November 2023. He has been instrumental in helping new CEO Sam Fischer develop the company’s “multi-year transformation programme”, which is focused on strengthening TWE’s luxury red wine leadership in key markets, as well as capturing growth in luxury whites, and providing “modern refreshment” solutions which speak to consumer trends.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Stuart for his service over the past six years, and in particular for his help in ensuring my smooth transition into the business,” said Fischer, who slid into the driving seat in October after three years as CEO of the Lion Group, which owns beer brands including Hahn, Tooheys and Four Pillars, as well as the rights to distribute Heineken and Guinness in Australia.
“I look forward to Stuart’s continued contribution over the coming months as we drive our focus on execution and shaping the future of the business through the TWE Ascent programme.”
There was no comment from Boxer in the press statement released by TWE and approved by its board.
Revenue nosedives
CEO Fischer has his work cut out for him following heavy losses and plummeting shares last month.
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TWE’s overall earnings were down 40% to AU$236.4 million for the half-year to December 2025 on a 17% nosedive in revenue to AU$1.3 billion. Share prices have also more than halved in the last year, leaving shareholders with their heads in their hands. Fischer has said that he plans to cut annual costs by AU$100 million over the next two to three years by trimming stock, which would steadily increase pricing (an effort known as Project Ascent). Part of this involves slashing the inventory of Penfolds in China by 400,000 cases and reducing stock for the US market outside California by about 300,000 cases.
“We do need to focus on discipline inside our organisation,” he said.
Fischer also said in December that he may also try again to sell off TWE’s cheaper wine brands, having withdrawn four labels – Wolf Blass, Lindemans, Yellowglen and Blossom Hill – from a sale process a year ago when no buyer was found. This time last year, Fischer confirmed that the value end of TWE’s portfolio was struggling due to “softness in consumer demand for wine at lower price points”.
The silver lining, however, was that TWE has managed to “successfully re-establish the Penfolds portfolio in China”, Fischer said, following the lifting of the punitive tariffs between China and Australia that had stifled sales there for three years. Interestingly, Penfolds winemakers have now set their sights on producing wines within China itself, on the steep slopes around Shangri-La in China’s Yunnan province.
“The future of Chinese winemaking is incredibly bright. We are very encouraged by the exceptional quality of grapes coming out of the regions and can see a huge amount of future potential,” Penfolds winemaker Matt Woo, who is heavily involved in the brand’s Chinese projects alongside chief winemaker Peter Gago, told db. “With each vintage we continue to learn and adapt to regional nuances and winemaking practices and look forward to seeing where this journey takes us.”
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