PepsiCo India makes Jagrut Kotecha the company’s new CEO

Leading food and beverage major PepsiCo India has promoted Jagrat Kotecha as Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, AMESA (Africa, Middle East and South Asia region) as CEO of India operations, replacing Ahmed Elsheikh.

Kotecha holds a BE Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Mumbai. He holds an MBA, in Marketing from SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).

He joined Cadbury India sales between 1992-1994. In 1994 he joined PepsiCo India Sales and Marketing and held various sales and marketing roles, becoming Regional Sales Manager in 1997 and Marketing Manager – Western Snacks till 1999.

Between 2000 – 2002 he was assigned the role of Regional Sales for Thailand and served as Director Sales – Foods – ASPACD till 2002. Between 2006 – 2010 he was Commercial Director- Philippines and General Manager- Malaysia/Singapore/Ranapur/Ranapur Mongolia.

Since 2011 Kotecha has held various positions as General Manager – Country Manager Thailand between 2011-Sep 2016; VP – Snacks Category India Region between October 2016 – May 2019; VP Global Affordable Platform – Foods from June 2019 – December 2019; And the latest is Senior Vice President Chief Commercial Officer – Amesa from January 2020.

Meanwhile, PepsiCo announced that Kirk Tanner, CEO of the company’s North American beverage business, will retire on February 2, replacing Ram Krishnan as CEO of PepsiCo Beverages North America. Tanner retired from PepsiCo after 32 years of service.

By Priyanka Bhowmick