Coca-Cola appoints a veteran of the company as the new chief financial officer in the reshuffle of leaders

Ms. Waller joined Coca-Cola in 1987 as a senior accountant and had to reconcile cost reduction with the company's desire to innovate new products during her CFO tenure. She joined the position in 2014.

John Murphy, who is currently President of Coke's Asia Pacific Group, will succeed her. Mr. Murphy has held a variety of finance, strategy and operations positions since joining the company in 1988.

Coke Chief Executive James Quincey said in a statement that Waller "has an outstanding legacy as a leader, especially as a mentor who has created a strong organization and put in place the building blocks to continue transforming and modernize our financial function. "

The CFO's transition was part of a reshuffle of leaders at the giant soft drinks. Coke has also appointed a new director of operations and technical directors.

Mr. Quincey's goal is to ensure that this iconic company abandons a culture of prudence, develops into new categories and markets its products more quickly.

Before Quincey was named CEO in May 2017, investors and analysts blamed Coke for focusing too long on sweetened beverages. Since then, Coca-Cola has been striving to diversify and launched more than 500 new products and variants last year. The company achieved this year's largest brand acquisition in its history, claiming that it would pay $ 5.1 billion for the British coffee chain Costa.

In the company's last quarter, which ended in June, sales decreased 8% year-over-year to $ 8.9 billion as a result of the divestiture of its bottling operations. . Coke earned $ 2.3 billion, up from $ 1.4 billion a year ago.

-Jennifer Maloney and Micah Maidenberg contributed to this article.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at [email protected]