Eugene Willemsen

Chief Executive Officer, International Beverages PepsiCo

Last Reviewed: October 3, 2026

Executive Summary

Eugene Willemsen is chief executive of PepsiCo’s International Beverages business, responsible since January 2025 for its drinks businesses outside North America, the SodaStream home-carbonation business and PepsiCo’s foods business in India. He has been with PepsiCo since 1995, when he joined from the Dutch dairy company Friesland-Campina, and has run businesses from the Benelux to Southeast Europe, led the global tea joint venture with Unilever, managed PepsiCo’s global brands and categories, and from 2019 ran Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. His career has been spent almost entirely outside the United States, in the international markets that PepsiCo’s strategy now emphasizes.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer, International Beverages at PepsiCo since January 2025.
• Chief Executive Officer, Africa, Middle East, South Asia, 2019 to 2024.
• Executive Vice President, Global Categories and Franchise Management, 2015 to 2019.
• President of the Pepsi-Lipton tea joint venture, 2014 to 2015.
• Chairman of the US-Africa Business Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Professional Journey

Willemsen earned a BBA at Nijenrode University in the Netherlands and an MSc in economics at VU University Amsterdam, and later completed an executive MBA at INSEAD. He joined PepsiCo from Friesland-Campina in 1995 as a business development manager.

He built his career in Europe: commercial director for the snacks business in Benelux from 1998, vice president and general manager of Benelux from 2000, and senior vice president and general manager of Northern Europe from 2006, of Commercial for PepsiCo Europe from 2008 and of South East Europe, overseeing 17 countries, from 2011 to 2013.

From 2014 to 2015 he was president of the global Pepsi-Lipton joint venture with Unilever, which operates in about 120 countries. He then served as executive vice president of global categories and franchise management, responsible for the strategic direction of PepsiCo’s global brands and commercial functions, before becoming CEO of Sub-Saharan Africa in 2019 and then CEO of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, a sector PepsiCo says employs more than 26,000 people across 74 countries. In 2024 he added international beverages and in January 2025 took on the international beverages role full time.

PepsiCo credits him with social impact programs in that region focused on women’s empowerment and youth development, and he received the CARE Impact Award for Corporate Vision for its partnership with CARE’s She Feeds the World program. He chairs the U.S. Chamber’s US-Africa Business Council and its U.S.-UAE Business Program, advises the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and represents PepsiCo on the World Economic Forum’s Regional Action Group for Africa. PepsiCo sells food and beverages in more than 200 countries and territories through six reportable segments and employed about 306,000 people at the end of 2025, according to its annual report.

Education

Nijenrode University

Bachelor of Business Administration

VU University Amsterdam

Master of Science, Economics