PepsiCo appoints Wern-Yuen Tan as Chief Executive Officer of APAC

Ram Krishnan to transition fully into the role as Global Chief Commercial Officer of PepsiCo

Food company, PepsiCo, Inc. has announced that Wern-Yuen Tan has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and China (“APAC”), overseeing all of PepsiCo’s operations in the region. Mr. Tan, who will begin his new role on 15 June 2020, will be based in Singapore and will report to PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta.

“All of us at PepsiCo are delighted to welcome Wern-Yuen as our new CEO of APAC at this time of unprecedented change and opportunity,” said Ramon Laguarta, CEO of PepsiCo. “Wern-Yuen has driven transformative innovation and results at every step of his career and brings deep experience with consumers in this diverse region through positions in retail, foodservice and consulting. His leadership will be instrumental as we look to accelerate growth by leveraging our scale and creating more localised solutions in these important markets.”

Prior to PepsiCo, Tan served as President and CEO of Walmart China where he led a team of 100,000 associates responsible for over US$10b/£7.9b in annual revenue across the Walmart, Sam’s Club and eCommerce businesses. During his tenure, he led Walmart China through a time of transformation to become an industry pioneer in omnichannel innovation and retail digitisation.

Prior to joining Walmart in 2017, Tan served as Managing Director for McDonald’s Taiwan, where he gained valuable experience in the foodservice sector. Earlier in his career, he was a principal at Boston Consulting Group, where he advised retail and consumer clients on growth strategy, innovation and turnarounds. Tan began his career in the Singapore government.

“I am thrilled to join PepsiCo, a truly global company whose products are recognised across the world,” said Tan. “With deep roots across this region and an unparalleled offering, PepsiCo is uniquely positioned to expand its market share and existing omnichannel capabilities across APAC. I look forward to working with Ramon and the entire leadership team to drive growth and localised solutions in this dynamic part of the world.”

Ram Krishnan, who has been serving as CEO of APAC, will now transition fully to his previously announced role as Global Chief Commercial Officer of PepsiCo. The role was created to support PepsiCo’s efforts to accelerate growth, with a focus on scaling innovation, commercial and transformation capabilities. This includes building a data-driven demand ecosystem; portfolio transformation; innovating with speed and impact; and building foundational eCommerce, Revenue Management, and Go-to-Market capabilities.

Laguarta continued: “I also want to recognise and express my deep gratitude to Ram and the APAC leadership team for their phenomenal work managing our business through a historically difficult period whilst delivering strong results and making PepsiCo Faster, Stronger and Better. Ram will now return fulltime to his role as Global Chief Commercial Officer, a crucial position for PepsiCo’s Winning with Purpose strategy. His continued leadership will be a tremendous asset as we execute on our global consumer and customer sales agenda, whilst developing and scaling new capabilities and business models based on data and technology to deliver future growth.”