Pepsico, the business behind food and drink brands Pepsi Max, Walkers and Doritos, has promoted Charline Berry to chief human resources officer (CHRO) for its Europe operations as of this week.
Berry, who was previously vice president of HR Europe functions at the organisation and focused on building new capabilities and developing future talent and leaders, will be overseeing all aspects of its people agenda for more than 40,000 members of staff based across 50 countries in Europe, including the UK.
According to the business, she has partnered with functional leaders to head up the its transformation across the region by building an “agile and connected” organisation that is adapting to the new reality post-Covid-19 (Coronavirus). These initiatives included embedding new ways of working, process transformation, and targeted investments in both future focused capabilities and technologies.
Before she joined PepsiCo in 2020, Berry was the global HR senior vice president of supply chain at Coty in Geneva. Before that, she spent more than 21 years with Danone in various global and local HR roles in its water and dairy businesses, including assignments in the Netherlands, France, and England.
She has a dual master’s degree in HR management from Paris Dauphine University, and in business and languages from Paris Sorbonne University.
Berry commented that there has been a shift in corporate culture not seen within many lifetimes recently, and the HR function is at the forefront of driving that change, with staff at the centre.
She explained that she finds PepsiCo in Europe to be an “incredibly dynamic” business that spans a vast geography and multiple categories.
“In my new role, I will be ensuring we are positioned to transform while we perform, managing critical changes including embedding sustainability across our business, harnessing digitalisation and becoming an even more diverse and inclusive company. I can’t think of a more exciting time to be leading our people agenda as we make those leaps,” Berry said.
