Someone other than Andrea Jung will soon take the hot seat at Avon. In December, the company announced that it would split the CEO and chairman roles in two. Avon has faced significant hurdles in the past years, most recently an SEC investigation related to allegations of bribery overseas. This past October, analysts read the riot act in a blistering earnings call.
Jung will stick around, serving as interim CEO until the company finds a replacement, at which point she'll become executive chairman. Out of all the female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, Jung has held her position the longest, for over a decade. But, as Jung herself seems ready to admit, it's a different world out there for direct-sales cosmetics than it was when she became CEO in 1999.
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