Coca-Cola is getting a shake-up.
The beverage giant’s chief operating officer, Henrique Braun, will become its next CEO on March 31, 2026, the company said on Wednesday. He will succeed James Quincey, who has held the title since 2017.
Braun has held a series of leadership roles since joining Coca-Cola in 1996, many of them focused on overseas operations. The board plans to nominate him for election as a director at the 2026 annual meeting.
As CEO, Braun will seek growth opportunities worldwide and use technology to support business performance, Coca-Cola said. Quincey will remain involved in the business as executive chairman.
The change at the top comes after a positive third-quarter report in which net revenues grew 5% to $12.5 billion, operating income rose 59%, and earnings per share increased 30% to $0.86.
The stock price has increased by more than 13% year to date.
The company has recently revisited some parts of its portfolio. Quincey said in October that Coca-Cola’s $5.1 billion Costa Coffee acquisition “didn’t work out as we expected,” noting slower-than-hoped growth outside Costa’s retail stores.
It’s a complicated time to be a CEO in the food and beverage space.
Coca-Cola has faced periods of consumer pullback abroad tied to anti-American sentiment, including a temporary drop in consumer sentiment in Mexico earlier this year.
Food and beverage companies are also facing growing scrutiny of ingredients under the Make America Healthy Again movement. The effort, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has focused on removing certain ingredients from foods.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump announced, and Coca-Cola confirmed, that it plans to launch a version of its flagship soda with cane sugar rather than corn syrup in the US.
This story was written using Business Insider’s AI tools and edited by a Business Insider editor.
