(L-R) Kelvin Balogun, President of Coca~Cola Southern & East Africa with Jeff Savage Head of Project Management and Doug Dennis the Technical Director. This was during this year’s commencement meeting that took place at the East Africa Operations Headquarters in Upper Hill. [Photo: Ogilvy]
Coca~Cola Southern and East Africa Business Unit kicked off the year with a two-day conference that saw 300 associates, from 18 African countries, converge at the regional office for East Africa.
The conference dubbed ‘Kick-off’, aims to align the company’s business plans for the upcoming year as well as create a unified mentality between employees. The unit's President Kelvin Balogun said, “we are delighted to have our annual kick-off meeting in Nairobi which remains a strategic regional hub for Coca-Cola, as the host country for all our operations in the Eastern Africa region and beyond.” “As an organisation, we are constantly looking to provide a stronger, more successful Coca~Cola system in Africa and create greater shared value for the business and the communities we serve across the value-chain, including local suppliers and retailers,” he began. “Meeting like this ensure that we are aligned as a system, operating in unison to achieve a shared goal, allowing us to build both capacity and capability of the business and of our people,” Balogun said. In mid-2016 Coca~Cola announced a new streamlined international structure that reconfigured its southern and east Africa operations to more closely align with bottling operations on the continent. This saw the formation of a new South and East Africa business unit, headquartered in Johannesburg and a West Africa business unit, headquartered in Lagos. “As I have mentioned on many occasions- Coca~Cola is here to stay in Kenya, and through the expertise in the Nairobi office we will be looking to deepen and intensify our operations in the whole of East Africa. We have an enduring commitment to Kenya and our planned investments in capacity and our partnership in the national development of Kenya in the near and long-term future remain consistent. At the same time we do need to let diversity be our strength and leverage the power of belonging to a strong African market with great prospects for growth and expansion for our business,” added Balogun.