WASHINGTON, March 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. beverage and snacks giant PepsiCo announced Monday that Laxman Narasimhan has been named the company's new chief commercial officer, a newly created position.
Narasimhan, who joined PepsiCo in 2012 from McKinsey & Company and previously ran the company's businesses in Latin America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, will take charge of PepsiCo's integrated long-term growth strategy and lead the development of commercial and marketing capabilities, the company said in a press release.
"Laxman is the ideal executive to take on this important new role," PepsiCo's CEO Ramon Laguarta said in a statement.
"He will be instrumental as we sharpen our integrated long-term growth strategy," said Laguarta, to whom Narasimhan will report in his new capacity.
In addition, the company also announced that Rene Lammers, who currently serves as the senior vice president overseeing research and development, is succeeding Mehmood Khan as chief science officer.
Khan will leave PepsiCo this month and become CEO of Life Biosciences Inc., a biotechnology startup.
"We believe these changes will enable us to better capture growth opportunities by getting closer to our consumers and deploying our global capabilities in a way that allows us to win locally in each of our markets," said Laguarta, who took over as CEO in October 2018.
PepsiCo's full-year net revenue growth in 2018 is 1.8 percent, according to its latest quarterly report. It expects core earnings per share (EPS) in 2019 to decline to approximately 5.50 U.S. dollars, down 3 percent from 5.66 dollars in the previous year.
Excluding changes in exchange rates, the decrease in core constant currency EPS year-over-year is forecast to be 1 percent this year, according to the report.
"Importantly, we expect to return to high-single-digit core constant currency EPS growth in 2020," PepsiCo said.
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