The new structure will organize around three major operating businesses: Coca-Cola Americas, Coca-Cola International, and Bottling Investments Group (BIG).
Coca-Cola Americas will consist of the company’s North America and Latin America operations. Steve Cahillane, currently president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Refreshments, will become president of Coca-Cola Americas.
Coca-Cola International will consist of the company’s Europe, Pacific and Eurasia & Africa operations. Ahmet Bozer, currently president of the Eurasia and the Africa Group, will become president of the new business.
Bottling Investments Group will oversee the company-owned bottling operations outside of North America and will continue to be led by Irial Finan.
“This is the right structure for the next phase of our journey toward achieving our 2020 Vision,” said Muhtar Kent, chairman and c.e.o. of Coca-Cola. “Over the last couple of years, we have systematically been adapting our business model to better address the changing demands of the global marketplace. First, we addressed the issues facing our system in our flagship market through the acquisition of CCE North America. Second, we further built the relevance of BIG, evolving it from its initial role of fixing challenging markets to a more significant role in spearheading our progress in select strategic markets such as China and India.
“We have a solid foundation and momentum in our business. Now is the time to take the next step in our evolution. By consolidating leadership of our global operations under two large, but similar sized geographic regions and BIG, we will streamline reporting lines, intensify our focus on key markets and create a structure that leverages synergies and gives us flexibility to strategically adjust our business within those geographies in the future.”
Coca-Cola said related organizational changes will be announced in due course. Until such time, all current organizational and reporting relationships will remain as is.
