Popovici, 47, is a PepsiCo president for the region and is one of the most important Romanian expats by the size of the business he runs, which ZF estimates at $5 billion.
The Romanian executive had been previously supervising PepsiCo operations in Russia, the second most important market for the US group after its home market. According to last year’s PepsiCo’s report, Russia contributed 7% of the group’s total revenue, about $4.4 billion. Ukraine and the CIS countries are not mentioned separately in the report, so there is no data about the revenue those markets generated. There are ten CIS countries (excluding Russia and Ukraine), which include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and the Republic of Moldova, once part of the Soviet Union.
Silviu Popovici will supervise the 12 markets from Moscow, where he has been living for more than a decade now, according to his LinkedIn profile.
His promotion to the new position comes two and a half years after being put in charge of PepsiCo’s business in Russia as managing director.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)