McEwan replaces Glenn at Walkers

Martin Glenn, Walkers Snackfoods head of marketing, has been promoted to a senior management job within parent company PepsiCo and will be replaced by Mhairi McEwan, the top Pepsi Cola marketer for Western Europe.

Official announcement of the changes, circulated at Walkers yesterday (Tuesday), has been speeded up after industry speculation that McEwan was on the move (MW November 8).

The company refuses to say where Glenn will be going, but admits he will leave early next year after a hand-over period. His new post is likely to be abroad, in another discipline. Yann Tardiff, marketing director of core brands at Pepsi Cola, who reported to McEwan, and Nick McGrath, the head of flavours for Pepsi in the UK, are also understood to be on the move. McGrath is understood to have been appointed to a senior business development role in Europe for PepsiCo.

Glenn has been Walkers’ vice-president marketing for PepsiCo’s flagship snackfoods business since July 1994, moving from director of new products where he oversaw the UK launch of the corn snack Doritos.

During his tenure as head of marketing, he has helped build Walkers into a 500m turnover business and one of the UK’s biggest food brands, overseeing initiatives such as the Gary Lineker ad campaign through BMP DDB, bigger “grab bags”, Doritos dips, and the forthcoming lower fat variant, Walkers Lites.

He says: “It’s the best job I have ever had – a mixture of exciting business conditions, doing things that really make a difference to the market – and meeting Gary Lineker.”

McEwan joined Pepsi in May 1995 from Lever UK where she was marketing manager. She has worked in Paris and Egypt.