BIO
Kurt Frenier is a passionate marketer with the innate curiosity to unlock what motivates consumers; always looking for new ways to create, engage and innovate. A published author, respected thought-leader, and transformative marketer, Frenier utilizes his nearly 30 years of experience in marketing and in particular in the food & beverage industry to drive transformative change and growth at PepsiCo.
Since joining PepsiCo 24 years ago, Frenier has demonstrated leadership and progressive ideas across the world. He is a global leader and has had a variety of marketing, innovation, change management, and general management roles across N. Europe, Continental Europe, Middle East & Africa, and globally. In his previous role as VP of Portfolio Transformation and Sustainability, he was tasked with leading the change of making PepsiCo’s core global beverage portfolio fit for the future, taking into account planetary boundaries.
Through his work, Frenier has been addressing changing consumer demands, attitudes, and preferences within the industry, and seismic regulatory and category shifts. That amongst others resulted in significant and visible relaunches of sugar-reduced products across its endemic brands (Pepsi, 7up, Mountain Dew, etc), as well as addressing the plastics issue to build towards a PepsiCo without plastic waste.
Kurt has always been in touch with the latest and greatest in marketing and is now leading a new "Marketing Transformation" function with the Beverages group that spans all international markets and working to elevate the marketing function and capabilities to build stronger iconic brands, amongst others by leading digital transformation, marketing capabilities, creative excellence and through inspiring PepsiCo's marketing community to lean in, experiment with, execute new technology platforms. He also leads agency partnerships, JBPs, sponsorships and is focused on improving data access, data mining, 1st party data management to accelerate brand equity and accelerate demand.
In addition to his professional achievements, Frenier is an avid reader and passionate about writing. In 2014, Frenier co-authored an innovative marketing novel, "Two Marketing Buddies Walk Into Buddha", a collection of conversations between two marketing thought-leaders over the course of a year; detailing what marketing is like day-to-day.