Ramon Laguarta, Director of Pepsico’s Growth

Ramon Laguarta, Director of Pepsico's Growth

Ramon Laguarta, born in Barcelona, Spain is the Chairman and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of PepsiCo. He is the sixth person to take the responsibility of CEO of the company as his predecessor Indra Nooyi stepped down the position on October 3, 2018.

He took over the position of the Chairman of the Board of Directors on February 1, 2019. Pepsico is a leading American multinational food, snack and beverage producer headquartered in Harrison, New York.

Established in 1965, the brand expanded from its product Pepsi, a beverage to manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages and other products.

Laguarta has been leading the 121 years old brand since 2018 as CEO but he has held several executives and general management roles in his 22 years at PepsiCo.

While he held the responsibilities of the company as a CEO, Laguarta was described as a great executive and one of the hardest-working , most humble and a global leader who knows business inside and out and a right choice for the position , leading the brand by the previous CEO Indra Nooyi who led the company for 12 years.

 A graduate from bachelors in business administration from ESADE Business School in Barcelona in 1985 and received his MBA or masters in international administration in 1986 from the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.

Ramon, before joining PepsiCo, worked at a Spain based candy company called Chupa Chups which is known for its lollipops. Following his work at the company, he joined PepsiCo in January 1996 and took his responsibilities handling the company's European business.

He served in a variety of sales, marketing and other commercial roles across Europe and eventually rose to the position of becoming CEO of the entire Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA) sector. It was one of the company's most complex businesses with operations spanning three continents and comprised of developed, developing and emerging markets.

He contributed to the company while working in Europe by leading the acquisition of Russian dairy and juice company Wimm-Bill-Dann.

He oversaw the company's Global Category Groups, it's Global Operations, Corporate Strategy, and Public Policy & Government Affairs functions as the president of PepsiCo.

He worked closely with business units to deliver top-line growth and productivity along with innovation.

Under his leadership, the brand will be adopting new leadership behaviours that are focused on driving high performance and building competitive advantage.

Consumer-centric, act as owners, focus, raising the talent bar and celebrating success are few followed by the leader. He has been positioning the company with its goals to become faster, stronger and better.

For being faster, Ramon has been investing to accelerate top-line growth and winning in the marketplace. He has been contributing towards making the brand stronger by transforming its capabilities and culture; and better by continuing to integrate Purpose into its business strategy.

He is leading the brand's beyond the bottle strategy to offer customers with better tasting beverages along with ensuring a sustainable packaging and building a successful brand.

Being tasked the implementation of PepsiCo's new sustainability agenda, he is leading the company with efforts towards reducing the plastics and ensuring that the brand is not dealing with anything that leads to a negative impact on climate change, water usage, agriculture, and human rights.

This plan includes reducing the absolute greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent for their entire value chain over a 2015 baseline (roughly 30-35 million metric tons of GHG).

Ramon has been spearheading the PepsiCo team's efforts towards the sustainability goals set to be achieved by 2025 includes making 100% of their packaging recyclable, compostable, or biodegradable and use 25% recycled plastic content in all plastic packaging.