Coca-Cola India shuffles leadership team, more exits expected soon

As more people across the world are getting health conscious and shunning high-calorie products, Coca-Cola's sales have taken a beating.

A year of flat sales and slow profitability have rung the warning bells and the firm is now trying to stage a successful comeback to return to profitability and what better place than India to do so.

India is going to be a mega economy in the near future; Coca-Cola is letting go of the old and bringing in the new to propel its business.

Coca-Cola marketing head Debabrata Mukherjee and Vice-president (southwest Asia sans India) Sumanta Dutta have vacated their positions.

In its bottling arm Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), Sanjay Sharma, executive director (supply chain) has also moved out.

Debabrata Mukherjee will now work as general management operations for South West Asia and his erstwhile position will be taken up by Vijay Parasuraman, who is currently handling things at Coca-Cola's Chinese division.

Parasuraman will be helped by Sundeep Bajoria, who is joining in as VP (strategy & insights) for India and South West Asia, from Coca-Cola's global finance team stationed at Dubai.

Shehnaz Gill will be moving from Coca-Cola New York from his position of vice president and general manager to take over as the head of operations in India and Asim Parekh, head of strategy and insights will now be the lead of fruit and agriculture circular economy.

The firm said Gill's move will help the company to prep up for the GST implementation.

More shuffling could take place soon, as rumors are afloat that there will be top-level changes in the legal departments and several HCCB officials will migrate to Coca-Cola India in the near future.

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages will also see some high profile exits from its supply chain and finance department in the wake of the firm's efforts to capture more market share in India.