New blood at the head of the general management of Pepsico Southwest Europe, the business unit based in the WTC of Cornellà (Barcelona) responsible for managing the sales of the American multinational in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The executive from Girona, Pol Codina, born in 1982, will replace Narcís Roura (Barcelona, 1960) on July 1, who has held the position for the last eight years.
Roura has been promoted to Pepsico's European headquarters, located in Geneva, where he will serve as senior vice president of Strategy and Transformation for all Pepsico Europe subsidiaries. The executive, who has been with the company that owns Lay's, Pepsi, Gatorade, Lipton, 7UP, Alvalle, and Quaker for 25 years, will report to the European CEO, Silviu Popovici, and to Athina Kanioura, global director of Strategy and Transformation for the multinational led by fellow Barcelona executive Ramon Laguarta.
The new director for Spain, Italy, and Portugal joined Pepsico almost 20 years ago, although during a two-year hiatus he worked at Nike. A graduate in Economics and Business Management from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Pol Codina began his career in the American group in the marketing and sales area, at the Barcelona headquarters. After eleven years, he joined Nike, but returned to Pepsico to take over the management of the out-of-home sales channel, which includes all the business Pepsico conducts outside of supermarkets, such as sales to the restaurant sector.
In 2019, he was promoted to lead the Portuguese subsidiary, a country where he had to deal with the pandemic. His career took another leap in 2022, when he moved to Geneva to serve as vice president for Europe of the entire out-of-home business. Now, he returns to Barcelona to take over the management for Southwest Europe, also reporting to Popovici.
"It is a great source of pride for me to be able to lead the Southern Europe unit after almost 20 years at PepsiCo. I hope to continue contributing to the success and acceleration of the business through key levers such as our global brands, digitalization, and sustainability throughout the value chain, always with people at the center," Codina highlighted.
With sales of 86 billion dollars in 2022, Pepsico operates in more than 200 countries and in 2022 decided to locate a global digital hub in its Barcelona headquarters with the aim of accelerating the multinational's digital transformation. Throughout its first year, the development center has incorporated 150 professionals of 30 different nationalities and its goal is to employ close to 400 people by 2024. According to the company, 33% of current workers are women, mostly in the areas of data science and analytics, but the challenge is to achieve gender parity by 2025.