PepsiCo’s chief design officer is departing

Mauro Porcini, who infused design into PepsiCo’s culture and led projects ranging from the lauded rebrand of Pepsi to more sustainable beverage dispensers, is leaving the company for another opportunity, PepsiCo told Ad Age. Porcini was not immediately available for comment. It was not clear what his next career move would be. See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here Porcini was PepsiCo’s first chief design officer, joining the company in 2012 under then-global beverages president Brad Jakeman and then-CEO Indra Nooyi. Seeing design as key to the future of packaged goods, they looked to Porcini to construct a global design capability inside the organization, and to infuse design into innovation. He led more than 400 employees at 18 design centers worldwide. “Good design is also good business,” Nooyi wrote in a foreword to Porcini’s 2022 book, “The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People.” “Design can help us find new, more powerful ways of making enterprises more dynamic, of engaging people and partners and firing their imaginations,” Nooyi added. Porcini joined PepsiCo following a decade of design roles at 3M including chief design officer, according to his LinkedIn profile. Named to Ad Age’s Creativity 50 in 2012, Porcini cited a range of influences from Leonardo da Vinci to Plato to Audrey Hepburn in his work. He espoused a humanistic approach to design and argued innovation should be an “act of love.” Porcini worked for more than three years on the redesign of Pepsi, which was introduced in 2023. That project was named Best Rebrand in Ad Age’s 2024 Creativity Awards—one of some 2,300 design and innovation awards for Pepsi since 2012, according to Porcini’s website. More news: What PepsiCo’s Poppi acquisition means for soda marketing Porcini influenced numerous other company projects such as the creation of an actual “Pepsi Perfect” soda to accompany the fictitious drink in the “Back to the Future” movie franchise. He oversaw conception and design of the customizable SodaStream Professional (which was recently discontinued) and the Gatorade Gx system integrating a reusable bottle, drink pod and wearable smart patch to monitor hydration. An activation at the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas saw PepsiCo deploy a Chester Cheetah hologram to perform wedding ceremonies. Also last year, Pepsi introduced a “smart can” with a digital wraparound screen. Pepsi’s design team was also behind the creation of Drips by Pepsi, the brand’s “dirty soda” food truck.

PepsiCo’s chief design officer is departing

Featured Stories