PepsiCo announces successor to outgoing CHRO Ronald Schellekens

PepsiCo, Inc. has announced the appointment of a new CHRO after Ronald Schellekens, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer confirmed his retirement. He will retire at the end of this year.

The company will welcome Cognizant executive Becky Schmitt as the new Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, effective from October 1. Becky will report to PepsiCo's Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta.

With almost 30 years of HR leadership experience, Becky was in various executive HR roles at Walmart, including Vice President and Chief People Officer (CPO) of Sam's Club. Becky also spent 21 years with Accenture in multiple senior HR roles globally, including an assignment in India.

Becky earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is currently a Board Member at Teach for America, NYC chapter.

"Ronald's leadership has been instrumental in progressing how we continue to build a human-centric organisation, spearheading The PepsiCo Way to unify our culture, as well as continuously optimizing our operating model to enable our long-term success," said Ramon Laguarta, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.

Ronald rejoined PepsiCo in 2018 and has played a critical role in progressing how we Raise the Bar on Talent and Diversity, elevating our reputation as a Best Place to Work, and supporting the optimization of our operating model.

"When I rejoined PepsiCo four and a half years ago, I could not have imagined the journey we would embark on together, from a pandemic and social unrest to unprecedented growth of our business and accelerated transformation and digitisation," said Ronald.