STAMFORD, Conn. – Philips Consumer Lifestyle today announced the appointment of Sharon Rossi as the new senior vice president and sector market leader for North America, effective immediately. Ms. Rossi joins Philips from Unilever where she spent more than 16 years in sales and operations leadership, most recently as vice president of customer development, customer operations and customer marketing for North America. Prior, Ms. Rossi had been in sales and marketing with Helene Curtis for eight years before the company was acquired by Unilever.

Ms. Rossi succeeds and reports to Mr. Bret Furio, who was promoted to Chief Market Leader for all markets for the global Consumer Lifestyle sector in 2012. In his position, Mr. Furio will further embed the company’s end-to-end customer-centric strategy to drive growth in key markets.This newly created  role supports Philips Consumer Lifestyle’s global operating model to move accountability closer to the markets – stimulating entrepreneurship, speed and local relevance.

 “With more than 20 years of CPG experience, Sharon Rossi brings an outstanding track record of delivering growth, developing strategic customer and supplier partnerships, bringing innovation to life with the consumer, developing high performing teams, and building world-class cross-functional capabilities,” said Bref Furio, chief market leader, Philips Consumer Lifestyle. “As the leader of the North America Consumer Lifestyle division, Sharon will further sharpen group’s focus on innovation, consumers and customers to accelerate growth and new business opportunities.”

Under Mr. Furio’s leadership, Ms. Rossi will continue to transform Consumer Lifestyle North America to become a market-driven organization with a focus on consumer needs and trends and strong partnership with customers to grow relevant business categories.

“This is an important time in the Philips transformation, and I am delighted to bring my expertise to lead our North America Consumer Lifestyle business,” said Rossi. “Not only will we strive to deliver new levels of business performance and customer satisfaction, we will also continue pursuing our mission of improving peoples’ lives through meaningful innovation.”

Ms. Rossi was recently recognized as a 2012 executive Woman Worth Watching by Diversity Magazine, and was honored by the Griffin Report as a 2011 Woman of Influence.  She holds an MA from the University of Illinois and a BA from the University of Massachusetts.