ATLANTA, US – The Coca-Cola Company today announced that Saadia Madsbjerg will be named Vice President of Global Community Affairs for The Coca-Cola Company and President of The Coca-Cola Foundation. Madsbjerg is expected to join the company June 1. She will manage operations of the Foundation, which includes grant making, financial requirements and regulatory compliance for domestic and international philanthropy.
“I’m thrilled to join The Coca-Cola Foundation, which has a built a remarkable legacy over a period of nearly 40 years through giving more than $1 billion to meaningful programs impacting communities worldwide,” Madsbjerg said. “I look forward to working with the Foundation’s partners and grantees in Atlanta and around the world.”
Madsbjerg is a former managing director of The Rockefeller Foundation, where she led efforts to seed-fund the development and launch of new financial instruments and partnerships designed to channel money from capital markets toward sustainable development.
“Saadia brings years of experience in corporate strategy and philanthropy, as well as in launching and leading sustainable, impact investing programs across public and private sectors to address challenges such as climate change, inequality and humanitarian crises,” said Bea Perez, Chief Communications, Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships Officer at The Coca-Cola Company. “We are thrilled to have someone of her caliber and look forward to Saadia building on the great history of The Coca-Cola Foundation.”
Before joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Madsbjerg was senior vice president for strategic planning at the New York City Economic Development Corp. She led a portfolio of projects focused on transformative opportunities for creating a more equitable and resilient economy.
Saadia Madsbjerg also previously worked in the technology sector at Cisco Systems, advising Fortune 500 companies and public sector institutions on how innovative technology could help create new business models and address critical challenges, such as social and economic challenges caused by an aging society.
Prior to Cisco, Madsbjerg was an associate principal at McKinsey & Co., where she advised multinational companies on corporate strategy.
Madsbjerg is the coauthor of Making Money Moral, a book that tracks the growth of sustainable and impact investing and features first-hand stories of innovations unlocking private-sector capital to solve critical challenges of the 21st century.
Madsbjerg, 44, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Copenhagen Business School. She will be relocating to Atlanta from New York.
Madsbjerg will report to Perez and succeeds Helen Price, who retired in 2020.
