Barron Von Retail

Barron Witherspoon, the director of global customer business development for Procter & Gamble Co. in Fayetteville, will transfer this June to Singapore where he’ll become director of customer business development over a region the company refers to as AAI. It’s an acronym for ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), Austrailasia and India.

Basically, Witherspoon said, it’s everywhere south of China.

The move entails a significant expansion of responsibility, although Witherspoon modestly described it as focusing on the customer marketing for that region.

An 18-year veteran of P&G, Witherspoon most recently served on the firm’s Wal-Mart Stores Inc. support team. The word has already been out that the high-profile exec was moving, but we were concerned about the Severe Acute Respitary Syndrome (SARS) epidemic now raging in China and Singapore.

Witherspoon said the disease, which through April 9 had killed 103 people, has not yet deterred the move. Of the 2,819 cases reported, 118 — or 4 percent — have been in Singapore.