P&G has announced that Susan E. Arnold, president-global business units, will retire in September after 29 years of service. Her position will not be replaced; instead, the vice chairs of P&G global business units who have reported to Arnold will report directly to chairman of the board and chief executive officer A.G. Lafley, eliminating a layer of management as part of the company’s ongoing simplification effort.

Commenting on Arnold’s retirement, Lafley said, “Susan has been an architect of the company’s winning beauty strategy for the past 20 years. She’s led the transformation of P&G into one of the world’s leading beauty companies—with vision, creativity, consumer understanding, and game-changing innovation.” Under Arnold’s leadership, P&G’s beauty business has nearly tripled in size from about $7 billion in 1999 to $20 billion today. Lafley added that Arnold has held positions at P&G that no other woman has held before—the first female leader of P&G’s global beauty business, the first female vice chair and the first woman to be company president.”