Reckitt Benckiser names PepsiCo executive Laxman Narasimhan its new CEO

British consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser named PepsiCo executive Laxman Narasimhan as its Chief Executive Officer on Wednesday. Narasimhan was serving as PepsiCo's global Chief Commercial Officer. He will be join the company as CEO-deignate and will be appointed to the board on July 16.

The company said in a statement that he will become group CEO on September 1.

Reckitt Benckiser said in the statement that Narasimhan's initial priorities will be to focus on delivering outperformance, especially in the health business unit, and to drive the Lysol maker's plan to split the firm into two business units under the same company.

He will succeed Rakesh Kapoor in the role.

Prior to his stint at PepsiCo, Narasimhan served as a Director for McKinsey & Company.

Narasimhan is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from College of Engineering, University of Pune. He is also an MA in German and International Studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in Finance from Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Apart from three Indian languages and English, Narasimhan speaks fluent German and conversational Spanish.

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