Umran Beba
Umran Beba was appointed President, Asia Pacific Region, PepsiCo, in February 2010. In this role, Ms. Beba is responsible for PepsiCo’s food and beverages businesses throughout the Asia-Pacific region, spanning more than 23 countries with 5,700 direct employees and about 70,000 indirect employees. Asia Pacific Region consists of Japan, Korea to Australia, New Zealand to Pakistan and the total of South East Asia. Therefore the composition has developed and developing markets as well as emerging markets. There are 14 company owned operations in this geography, 20 franchise partnership and 5 joint ventures. Growth rates are in double digit range with healthy profitability. Working with 10,000 farmers in this geography , supporting sustainable agriculture practices as well as contribution to rural economies. Female executive ratio reached 36% in Asia Pacific region in the last 2 years from 26% levels. In total, 21 nationalities work in the geography and Umran works with 9 different nationalities in her Executive Committee. She is a great supporter of PepsiCo’s Sustainability initiatives around the region, to name few, Water Hope in Philippines ,soon to open in Vietnam also, Liter of Light in Philippines market, Seed the Young in Thailand , sustainable product initiatives in Australia and several water and energy recon initiatives in Pakistan.
An 18-year PepsiCo veteran, Ms. Beba has held a wide range of roles since joining the company in 1994.
Before assuming her current position, Ms. Beba was President of PepsiCo’s South East Europe Region, covering 14 markets including Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Israel and the Balkans. In this role, she worked on the integration of newly bought Balkans businesses in Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, worked on the integration plans for Turkey snacks and beverages given the acquisition of beverage business from Pepsi Bottling Group and completed talent transition plans given all the integrations happening in the region. She was sitting in the Board of Directors of Frito Lay-Strauss partnership in Israel during this assignment. She had 43% women executive representation in the region and about half of her team was women.
Prior to this role, she was the Business Unit General Manager for East Mediterranean – comprising Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. When she was in this role PepsiCo entered Syria and Iraq markets with Umran and her team’s leadership. These two markets opening up represented a big growth opportunity for PepsiCo and at the end numbers demonstrated the success of entry strategies. Excellent volume and profit growth with a lot of investments in the region and growing Pepsi businesses to new heights. In Jordan and Lebanon share numbers were above 80%, Syria and Iraq were building very fast. Turkey business continued to be the main source of revenue growth with double digit rates. During this assignment Umran was supporting the whole Middle East Africa female talent development initiatives.
Until 2004, she was the General Manager of Frito Lay (snacks business) in Turkey for more than three years. In this role revenue doubled and profit tripled in 3 years.
Frito Lay Turkey had the prestigious Don Kendall award of PepsiCo for extraordinary business results for 2 years in a row during her tenure. She went through the big Turkish 2001 economic crisis experience with her team during her GM years and came through it very successfully.
She had Commercial Director, Marketing Director and HR Director roles in Frito Lay Turkey between 1994 and 2001 before becoming a GM.
In her HR role, she worked on culture change and applied some marketing tools to HR processes to capture more people in the organization and create impact. She also developed the Global Salesman selection toolkit for PepsiCo during her HR assignment and awarded for this later.
In Marketing role she converted local brands to global brands like Panco to Doritos, major re-launch with Turkish pop stars. In Commercial role, she had to rebuild the business and the share after a major earthquake in Turkey which affected the plant, production and supply chain dramatically for Frito Lay Turkey. It was a great success converting the business after 3 months of no local production.
She joined PepsiCo in 1994 following a marketing career in Colgate-Palmolive in Turkey. She had more than six years in CP Turkey in various marketing roles. This was the period in Colgate where the company was moving from only Household Care to also Personal Care and she launched Colgate toothpaste in Turkey which reached 20% share in 3 months and then Palmolive shampoo few years later.
As an active champion of Diversity and Inclusion, Ms. Beba has been instrumental in leading PepsiCo’s Female Talent development efforts in many parts of the world, and has achieved considerable success. During her time at PepsiCo Asia Pacific, the ratio of female executives has increased from 26% to 36%. In February 2012, PepsiCo Asia Pacific was awarded “Asia’s Most Women Friendly Employer of the Year” at Women In Leadership Forum in Kuala Lumpur. In Turkey, where the ratio of female executives on Ms. Beba’s management team was 53%, Forbes Magazine named PepsiCo Turkey as the #1 company in the country for “fastest female advancement” out of 121 companies analyzed. Ms.Beba received PepsiCo’s Steve Reinemund Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Legacy award in April 2012 in Purchase-New York.
In September, 2011, Fortune magazine named Ms. Beba #25 in its international list of the Most Powerful Women in Business and recently in April 2012 Fortune Turkey named her as the #2 Most Powerful Turkish Business Woman.
Ms. Beba is a Board Member of Calbee Group Japan, an Advisory Council Member for the Switzerland-based Women International Network (WIN), an Advisory Council Member for Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School, and an Advisory Council Member for “Mentorship for Women for Board Seats,” organized by Praesta and Forbes in Turkey. She also sits on the Council of the region-wide industry body Food Industry Asia.
Ms. Beba holds an MBA and a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University in Turkey. She lives in Hong Kong with her husband, Prof. Dr. Ali Beba, and their two sons,11 and 8 years old.
