James Robert B. Quincey (8 January 1965) is a British businessman based in the United States. After starting his career at Bain & Co, he joined

The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, ...

in 1996 and was later named

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

(COO). He is now the

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

(CEO) at the company.

Early life

James Robert B. Quincey was born on 8 January 1965 in London, England, and lived in

Hanover, New Hampshire Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of Eng ...

, US for three years when his father was a lecturer in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

. By age five, they had moved to

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, England. He attended

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

King Edward's School, Birmingham and has a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

. He is fluent in Spanish.

Career

Joining Coca-Cola

After working with Bain & Co and a smaller consultancy, he joined

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

in 1996. With Coke he has lived in Latin America and worked for Coke in Mexico, where he led the acquisition of Jugos del Valle. He was president of the Northwest Europe & Nordics Business Unit from 2008 until 2012. In 2013, he became president of Coca-Cola's Europe Group. In Europe, he oversaw Coca-Cola's acquisition of

Innocent Drinks Innocent Drinks is a company that produces smoothies and juice sold in supermarkets, coffee shops and various other outlets. The company sells more than two million smoothies per week. Innocent is over 90% owned by The Coca-Cola Company. Histor ...

, and the sale and consolidation of Coca-Cola's bottling operations in Europe. When he was working with Coke early on, '' Bloomberg'' says he was instrumental in getting the company to sell smaller portions.

COO and President

In August 2015, Coke made him the chief operating officer (COO). He became president later that year. He outlined a plan to have five category clusters for brands in the company. He also changed management and the entire Coke hierarchy.

Chairman and CEO

He was named CEO in December 2016. He became CEO the following May when

Muhtar Kent Ahmet Muhtar Kent (born December 1, 1952) is a Turkish-American business executive. He was the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of The Coca-Cola Company. He became CEO in 2008, and chairman in 2009. In December 2016, Coca-Cola announced ...

retired. Among his first acts as CEO, he announced reducing 1,200 corporate positions as part of a plan to invest in new products and marketing and restore the year's revenue and profit growth from four to six percent. Quincey also said in interviews that he wanted to rid the Coke company's culture of over-cautiousness concerning risk, and that he intended to further diversify Coke's portfolio by accelerating investments in startup businesses. He later launched a plan to recycle a bottle for every bottle sold by 2030. On 24 April 2019, Quincey was elected chairman of the board. In December 2021 Quincey announced the planned discontinuation of many of its slower selling products such as Tab and Zico coconut water.CNN: December 13th, 2021: Business:Risk Takers, Coca Cola's James Quincey:He killed some of Coke's most beloved brands. And he'd do it all over again
/ref>

Personal life

Quincey and his wife Jacqui have two children, and live in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, Georgia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quincey, James 1965 births Living people American chief executives of food industry companies Coca-Cola people People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham Alumni of the University of Liverpool Businesspeople from London