Todd Kaplan is Pepsi’s Chief Marketing Officer, overseeing marketing for the Pepsi brand and PepsiCo’s
sparkling water business in North America. He is responsible for all creative communications, brand strategy,
product innovation, and commercial execution across a number of brands in PepsiCo’s sparkling portfolio
including Pepsi, Bubly Sparkling Water, and more.
Recognized as a top CMO by Forbes on their “Entrepreneurial CMO Top 50” list and by Business Insider as one
of the “Top 25 Most Innovative CMOs in the World”, Todd has brought a disruptive, unapologetic, and cultureforward
perspective to Pepsi that has been foundational to re-energizing the brand. Since Fall of 2018, he has
infused a challenger mindset into Pepsi and has brought the brand back into the cultural zeitgeist – from
reinvigorating the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show platform with historic performances from JLo & Shakira, Dr
Dre, Snoop, Eminem, The Weeknd and many more, to developing disruptive new products like Nitro Pepsi, to
putting out some of the boldest and most talked about and globally awarded brand creative the Pepsi brand has
ever seen. Todd has also been instrumental in establishing Pepsi as an industry leader around the development
of new content models, pushing the brand into new spaces including the creation of multiple television shows,
long form films, creator partnerships, and NFT projects. He even boldly created a new Pepsi logo and visual
identity system for the brand that successfully brought a widely celebrated modern, distinctive, and familiar feel to
the brand for its first visual identity refresh in over 14 years.
Kaplan’s impact has been broadly felt across both the business and the brand. Under Todd’s leadership, Pepsi
has experienced its first positive sales growth in well over 15+ years, and has sustained that positive sales growth
for 18 consecutive quarters and counting. Simultaneously, Pepsi has seen increases across all core brand equity
measures (including an +11pt improvement in brand consideration) while achieving all-time highs in earned
media, social conversation, and creative effectiveness.
Prior to this assignment, Kaplan has spent much of his career at PepsiCo, where he has consistently brought his
creativity, strategic thinking, and passion to each of his roles. Most recently, he led the transformation of
PepsiCo’s multi-billion-dollar U.S. Water Portfolio by creating and launching two new brands - BUBLY (sparkling
water) and LIFEWTR (premium water). These two brands quickly became the biggest new product launches in
PepsiCo history, delivering close to $500MM in sales in their first two years alone, catapulting PepsiCo to become
the #1 driver of growth in the entire U.S. water category. Over the years, Kaplan has consistently made an impact
within a variety of different roles at PepsiCo, whether it was leading marketing for Mountain Dew, overseeing
Pepsi’s vast roster of Sports Marketing partnerships, or leading Consumer Insights and creating disruptive new
Beverage Innovation products for PepsiCo’s foodservice division. Prior to joining PepsiCo he worked for Millsport
LLC, a sports marketing consultancy, where he oversaw the VISA International business.
Kaplan’s efforts have been widely recognized and well regarded within the marketing community and beyond, as
his work has been awarded numerous Cannes Lions, and he has been honored with the UJA’s “Industry
Visionary Award” and in The Wall Street Journal as an inaugural honoree in MTM’s “Visionaries” platform. He has
been featured by Rolling Stone as a “Marketing Rockstar” and selected as one of the country’s “Top 50 Marketers
in North America” multiple times by OnCon Icon Awards, while playing a critical role in PepsiCo being named as
Marketing Dive’s “Marketer of the Year”. He regularly gives his time back to organizations within the marketing
community, where he has served as a juror for industry leading awards ranging from the Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity to The Effies, and has been a key executive supporter of the AdWeek DEI
Council’s “Executive Mentor Program”. Todd is a thought leader within the industry, recognized as one of
LinkedIn’s “Top Voices” as one of the “30 Most Influential Marketers” on the platform and one of the “Top 30
CMOs to Follow” on social media. He has keynoted and spoken at a range of events from the Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity to South by Southwest to NY Advertising Week to the Milken Institute Global
Conference. He sits on the Board of Advisors for the Yale University Center for Customer Insights and the North
America Board of Directors for the International Advertising Association, and holds a BA in Economics from
Northwestern University, and an MBA from Yale University.