President of Avon leaving

       Avon Products Inc said on Thursday that its president, Elizabeth Smith, was leaving the beauty products company at the end of October to seek out a CEO position elsewhere.
       Smith joined Avon in January 2005 and has been president since September 2007. As president, Smith was in charge of the company's global marketing, supply chain and information technology divisions and also oversaw global sales.
       Andrea Jung has served as Avon's CEO since November 1999, according to CapitalIQ. Smith said in a statement that it was likely Jung would remain at the company's helm for some time.
       "With Andrea's commitment as a relatively young CEO to lead Avon for the foreseeable future and with her full support, the time is right for me to seek the next step of my career outside of Avon,"she said.
       Stifel Nicolaus analyst Mark Astrachan,said he thinks the announcement indicates that Jung will remain in her current role for the foreseeable future.
       "While we believe the departure of Ms Smith has the potential to create near-term business disruptions, we believe momentum in representative growth will continue to positively contribute to improving revenue and operating profit trends over the balance of 2009 and 2010," Astrachan wrote in a client note.
       Avon, which sells its products mostly by catalogue and door-to-door sales representatives, said it had no immediate plans to name a replacement for Smith.
       A slowdown in discretionary spending during the recession has squeezed demand for Avon's cosmetics and fragrances, so the company has started to offer more products at lower prices.
       In July the New York-based company said it would cut about 1,200 jobs, or about 2.8% of its global staff, by 2013 as part of a turnaround effort designed to save $200 million by 2012 to 2013.
       The job cuts exclude sales representatives.