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New York • PepsiCo Inc. revamped its management structure Monday in a move intended to strengthen its lineup of potential successors to CEO Indra Nooyi and leverage its scale as a global company.
The management restructuring puts John Compton, who directs the company's Americas foods division, in charge of all the company's global groups in the newly created role of president.
PepsiCo said Compton will also work with its regional groups for Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa to build brands, develop new products and cut costs. Compton, who is 52, started his career with PepsiCo when he was 22 and has been there ever since.
Brian Cornell, who was president and CEO of Walmart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club division, will take over for Compton as CEO of PepsiCo Americas Foods. The unit includes the company's Frito-Lay, Quaker foods and snacks businesses.
Cornell, who is 50, previously held management positions at Pepsi, including president of its Tropicana brand and its Europe and Africa beverage businesses, before leaving the company in 2004.
PepsiCo said the appointments are effective immediately.
John Sicher, editor of Beverage Digest, said the appointments were in line with PepsiCo's focus on transforming into a more international company, such as rival Coca-Cola Co.
"They want to extract all the benefits they can from being as big and global a company as they are," Sicher said.
The focus on international markets has become increasingly critical for beverage and snack-food companies, given the flat growth at home in recent years.
PepsiCo in the past few years created three groups: global beverages, global snacks and global nutrition. The company said the heads of each of those groups will now report to Compton.
The new management structure comes as PepsiCo, the nation's No. 2 cola company, has lost ground in recent years to Coca-Cola and faced speculation that Nooyi would step down amid investor dissatisfaction.
In a note to investors, Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. analyst Mark Swartzberg said he considered the appointments positive for the company's long-term fundamentals. Although he said he had no inside knowledge of the situation, he said it was a "reasonable outcome" that Nooyi would soon leave her post as CEO, paving the way for Compton or another senior PepsiCo executive.
At its annual investor meeting last month, PepsiCo said it plans to focus on regaining market share in North America by rolling out products and significantly boosting its advertising spending. The company also said it would cut 8,700 jobs, or about 3 percent of its workforce.