Darrell Stein out at Reckitt Benckiser

Reckitt Benckiser CIO Stein carries the can for July's NotPetya outbreak

Darrell Stein, senior vice president of information services at Reckitt Benckiser, is leaving the company on 1 October.

Stein will be replaced by Seth Cohen, a PepsiCo executive responsible for IT operations in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa for the soft drinks company, according to Bloomberg, in a sudden switch more reminiscent of a football club appointing a new manager.

Stein is one of a number of executives at the fast-moving consumer goods manufacturer carrying the can for the NotPetya outbreak that the company claims will cost at least £100m in lost revenue, as well as challenging trading conditions in a number of units, in a reshuffle revealed this week.

Back in November 2015, shortly after he'd joined Reckitt Benckiser, Stein told Computing: "We haven't got to that point [of a data breach] thankfully… But ultimately it's my accountability; someone has to be accountable for it. My job is to increase the awareness, make sure we are spending the right amount of money and getting those investments right as well."

The abrupt departure of Stein, who only joined the company in mid-2015, suggests that the company is holding him accountable for the NotPetya breach.

But it also coincided with a broader reshuffle at the company that saw the company's head of marketing, Roberto Funari, leave following losses at the company's Scholl footwear business. The company is also struggling with a decline in sales of baby milk formula following a $16.6bn acquisition of Mead Johnson.

Other major organisations badly affected by NotPetya include shipping giant Maersk and parcels delivery firm TNT Express, which is still struggling to overcome the effects of the destructive malware.

Darrell Stein joined Reckitt Benckiser after leaving retailer Marks & Spencer in 2014, where he had spent eight years building up the company's online presence and improving its use of data, among other things. He has also worked at Vodafone and Mars. Stein was replaced at M&S by Tesco CIO for internet retailing, Carl Dawson.

However, one indication that Stein's departure might not have been quite so sudden is the sale of share options on Friday, reducing his stock holding to nothing. The 8,901 shares would have yielded Stein £658,496.