Stuart Kronauge

On September 8, 2011, students on the Dahlonega campus heard from Ms. Stuart Kronauge, senior vice president of marketing for Coca-Cola Trademark Brands.

Stuart has responsibility for the Coke TM brands (Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero) in the US. In her role she will lead the strategy and marketing/innovation direction of these businesses.

Prior to this role, Stuart was previously Vice President of the Walmart and Sam’s Club US Total Beverage Business Team for The Coca-Cola Company. In her role on Walmart and Sam’s role Stuart was responsible for every aspect of the company’s North American beverage business and directs a team of over 25 field and headquarter-based professionals. Walmart and Sam’s are two the Coca-Cola North America’s largest customers with over $3 billion in annual revenues across sparkling, still, juice and foodservice categories and have enjoyed double-digit growth since 2006.

Stuart assumed the reins of Walmart North America in March 2009 after year and a half tenure as Vice President of Marketing for the team. There, she successfully created, organized and staffed the North American marketing group, leading functional managers in Finance, Insights and Knowledge, Multicultural Marketing, Innovation, Strategic Planning and Customer and Shopper Marketing and Community Presence and Activation. Her collaborative work with Walmart’s marketing and merchandising leadership garnered her industry recognition for strategic execution of co-equity advertising around Summer and Christmas seasonality. Her Christmas 2008 marketing of “Stock up on Joy” was recognized as “truly magical” and bestinclass marketing across the United States by Advertising Age magazine.

Prior to joining the Walmart North America business in 2007, Stuart successfully held a variety of leadership roles in Coca-Cola marketing and organizational development. Perhaps her most significant contribution was the 2007 “organizational transformation” project she spearheaded. As a part of an overall reorganization and restructuring of the Coca-Cola North American business division – the Company’s largest operating division in the world – she led a team of cross-functional managers and senior leaders through process re-design and complete operating model change, resulting in the reconfiguration of business units within the division, reporting roles and responsibilities, P&L accountabilities, customer teams and cultural change initiatives. Her efforts generated new, realized productivity in both role effectiveness and net operating profits.

Before taking on the transformation assignment, Stuart served a year as Executive Assistant to the Coca-Cola North America CMO and EVP she was engaged in high profile Mergers & Acquisition, Financial, Bottler-System and Marketing initiatives.

As the senior marketing leader presiding over Coca-Cola North America’s Flavored Brands portfolio, Kronauge led a team of over a dozen brand marketers and their cross-functional counterparts. Her team developed and activated programs that made Fanta, Vault and Fresca three of the division’s highest performing brands. She was responsible for over 500-million cases in volume, delivering an average growth rate of 5+% annually, the highest in The Company. As part of her successful strategy for Fanta, she launched the still running Fantanas campaign and was recognized in 2006 as Advertising Age’s Top 50 Marketers of the Year in 2006.

Stuart graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She spoke on connecting Coca-Cola, a 125-year-old brand icon, with today's teens.