Coca Cola India announces top level organisational changes

Coca-Cola India announced some key senior leadership changes. These are aligned to the Company's long term plans of becoming one of The Coca-Cola Company's top five markets (in volume terms) by 2020.

Announcing the senior leadership changes, Venkatesh Kini, Deputy Business Unit President, India and South West Asia, said, "As we move into the next phase of our journey in India, we have a solid foundation and the necessary momentum in our business. We now need to have the scale and resources to capture latent growth. Building our talent pipeline and developing people capability is one of our key pillars for success. The new senior level management changes being announced today is a step in that direction. The entire team will work closely with our bottling partners to achieve our Vision 2020 goals in India."

The following are the key organizational changes effective October 1, 2013. The below mentioned senior leaders of the Company will report to Venkatesh Kini. There are no changes in the organization structure at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd; the Company owned bottling operations in India led by T. Krishnakumar, CEO, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd.

1. Vikas Chawla, currently VP Operations, is moving to Athens, taking over as the Franchise Operations Head in South East Europe where he will lead Operations for 12 European countries. He adds to the list of 47 managers that the BU has exported to the global TCCC system.

For a deeper focus on Operations, Coca-Cola India will have two Operations leaders going forward:

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Sumanta Datta, currently VP - Customer and Commercial Leadership, will take over as Vice President, Company Bottling Operations (including Delhi region and National Key accounts). He will work closely work with the team at Hindustan Coca-Cola to deliver the volume and profitability targets for Coca-Cola India. Sumanta has been with the Coca-Cola system since 1995 in a variety of roles in Marketing, Operations, Customer & Commercial Leadership, Strategy in India as well as China. In his most recent role he has helped drive growth in our National Key Accounts business.

Bhupendra Suri, currently Director, Franchise Operations, is being elevated as Vice President - Franchise Bottling Operations. He will work with the 11 franchise bottlers in India and provide leadership and strategic direction to them. Bhupendra has spent 17 years in India in a variety of functional and general management roles, with the company as well as the bottling operations.

2. Andriy Avramenko, currently VP - Juice, will take over as Vice President Strategy and Still Beverages. Andriy has had diverse experiences within The Coca-Cola Company in Strategy, Mergers and acquisitions, business integration, supply chain and finance.

3. Debabrata Mukherjee, currently Vice President, Strategy and Still Beverages, will take on the role of Vice President, Marketing and Commercial. The Marketing and Commercial roles are being brought together under one head, for a deeper and combined focus on commercial & shopper marketing as well as product commercialization. He was the Head of Marketing for The Coca-Cola Company in Korea before coming back to India in 2011.

4. Anupama Ahluwalia, currently VP Marketing, will take up a short term leadership assignment with Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. to get direct experience within our bottling system. Upon completion of the assignment, Anupama will then return to Coca-Cola India.