Coke Names North American CMO Chief Sustainability Officer

Coca-Cola is upping the ante when it comes to sustainability. The beverage giant has created a chief-sustainability-officer position and appointed Beatriz Perez, chief marketing officer for Coca-Cola North America, to the role, effective July 1. A new CMO has not yet been named. Ms. Perez, 41, will be responsible for integrating Coca-Cola's myriad sustainability initiatives, which include water conservation, climate protection and recycling. She will oversee a new global office of sustainability, which will be responsible for establishing the company's sustainability strategy, setting high-level goals and commitments, assessing investments and managing partnerships and projects. "We have made significant progress with our sustainability initiatives, but our current approach needs focus and better integration to further accelerate our system sustainability agenda and meet our 2020 Vision goals," Muhtar Kent, chairman-CEO of Coca-Cola, said in a statement. "We are realigning this important work to create a unified team, strategy and business plan that connects our sustainability work and actions." Ms. Perez joined the company in 1996 as an associate brand manager and has held a variety of marketing roles. She has managed the company's relationships with Nascar and the National Basketball Association, as well as athletes like LeBron James in sports-marketing roles, and she pushed back against establishment in her role as VP-media, sports and entertainment marketing. In that role she pulled some entertainment-marketing duties in-house and away from Creative Artists Agency, which had handled much of that work for 15 years. In 2006 she was named an Ad Age Media Maven.

Coke Names North American CMO Chief Sustainability Officer

Featured Stories