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February 10, 2026
John Brazier

Food and drinks giant PepsiCo has appointed Dannii Portsmouth as the new senior vice-president and CHRO for Europe.
Portsmouth will now report directly into PepsiCo’s European CEO, Silviu Popovici.
Another recent direct report appointment for Popovici is Archana Jagannathan, who is PepsiCo’s new chief sustainability officer for Europe.
Writing on LinkedIn about her HR appointment, Portsmouth noted:
Portsmouth’s appointment comes just ahead of Becky Schmitt coming in as global CHRO in October. Ronald Schellekens, the current CHRO, is retiring at the end of the year.
Portsmouth has been at PepsiCo for four years – she previously served as VP of HR for Beverages the West Division of the US. Prior to that she was VP of HR for the UK & Ireland.
But she doesn’t just have expertise of the European HR landscape from within PepsiCo. Before the food and drinks giant, she spent a decade living in the UK and working in senior HR positions at pharma giant GSK.
In this new CHRO role, Portsmouth will oversee the company's people and talent strategy for 40,000 employees across 55 countries.
She will be primarily focusing on spearheading continued HR and culture transformation for the brand. Her appointment comes two years after the food and drinks giant launched a new future-focused app called pep+.

She shared: “We’ve seen such a huge shift in corporate culture over the last few years, which presents both significant challenges and exciting opportunities.
“My team will be driving that change and helping to reimagine the workplace of the future.
“I can’t think of a more exciting time to be leading our people operation as we make these strides forward.”
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