The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, announced a new operating structure and the senior leaders for those businesses. Effective Jan. 1, 2013, it will organize around three major operating businesses: Coca-Cola International, which will consist of the Company's Europe, Pacific and Eurasia & Africa operations; Coca-Cola Americas, which will consist of the Company's North America and Latin America operations, and; Bottling Investments Group (BIG), which oversees the Company-owned bottling operations outside of North America.
Ahmet Bozer, currently president of the Eurasia & Africa Group, will be appointed president of Coca-Cola International; Steve Cahillane, currently president and CEO of Coca-Cola Refreshments (CCR), will be appointed president of Coca-Cola Americas; and Irial Finan will continue as president of BIG.
All three executives will continue to report to Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent, who said, "This is the right structure for the next phase of our journey toward achieving our 2020 Vision. 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." And he added, "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.
