Three longtime Coca-Cola board members are retiring Thursday, according to company officials. Barry Diller, Alexis Herman and Marc Bolland will step down as directors after serving a combined 48 years on the board of the Atlanta-based beverage giant, the company said in a press release.
“All three of these strong business leaders have made important contributions in their own, distinct ways,” said James Quincey, the company’s chairman and chief executive, in a statement. “They will be missed, and I wish them all the best.”
Quincey said the company will “refresh the board” with new directors.
Diller, a high-profile business figure for decades, is currently chairman of the board and senior executive of IAC, a media and internet company, and also chairman of the board and senior executive at Expedia Group Inc., an online travel company. In a career that included many tech and entertainment involvements over the decades, he was for eight years the chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox.
In 2005, Diller was reportedly the highest paid executive in the United States with compensation of $295 million. He has been a Coca-Cola director since 2002.
Herman has been a director of The Coca Cola Company since 2007. She is chair and CEO of New Ventures, a risk management consulting firm, and chair of the Diversity Advisory Board at Toyota Motor Corp. She was chair of a Coca-Cola task force from 2001 to 2006 that was intended to find ways to improve the company’s management of employees. That assignment came after a 2000 settlement of an employment lawsuit against the company.
Herman was U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1997 to 2001 during the second term of President Bill Clinton.
Bolland is a senior advisor to Blackstone Group International Partners, a huge asset manager. He was chair of Blackstone Europe from 2019 to 2023 and head of Blackstone’s European Portfolio Operations from 2016 to 2022. He has held a number of other corporate positions, including CEO of Marks & Spencer Group, a British-based retailer and CEO of WM Morrison Supermarkets, a grocery chain in the United Kingdom.
Before that, he was chief operating officer of Heineken, one of the world’s largest brewers. Bolland has been a Coca Cola director since 2015.
Credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
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