LONDON — Avid motorcyclist Alan Jope is looking down one long, winding — and potentially treacherous — road as the new chief executive officer of Unilever. Jope, 54, is president of beauty and personal care, Unliever’s largest single division, which notched 5.2 billion euros in revenues in the third quarter. He may be a company lifer who’s acted internationally for the maker of Dove, Lipton and Vaseline for more than 30 years — but much of what lies ahead of him is unexplored territory. The genial, straight-talking Scotsman had been a front-runner for ceo, but no one expected the appointment to come so quickly: Although Unilever began its search for ceo Paul Polman’s successor roughly a year ago, he wasn’t expected to step down for another six months or so. Jope’s first order of business will be to repair relationships with Unilever’s big institutional shareholders after Polman’s botched plan to simplify the corporate giant’s dual structure and move the company fully to the Netherlands. He’ll then have to come up with a new strategy for Unilever’s future now that shareholders want to keep it headquartered in London and Rotterdam, and retain its listings on stock markets in the U.K. and the Netherlands. “At this stage we
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