Michael White, the chief executive and vice chairman of PepsiCo International, in charge of all PepsiCo's operations outside the US and Canada is to retire later this year. Zein Abdulla will take over as head of PepsiCo Europe, while Saad Abdul-Latif will become CEO of PepsiCo Asia, Middle East & Africa.

Patrice Pinet has replaced Jean Marc Olivier as president and master blender of Maxxium UK's cognac house Courvoisier. Pinet has worked at the Courvoisier distillery in Jarnac, France, for more than 20 years and was instrumental in the creation of L'Essence de Courvoisier, launched this month.

BOSS, the British Oil Security Syndicate, has named Peter Oakford, manager of sales for the Texaco brand in the UK at Chevron, as chairman. He replaces Total's Peter Mellins who becomes vice chairman.

Wine importer Buckingham Schenk has appointed Alison Wray as NAM for Asda. She was most recently at Cobra Beer where she looked after Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Somerfield before moving on to the Asda and Tesco accounts.

Bruno Bich, a non-executive director for Imperial Tobacco, has stepped down with immediate effect because of "overall business commitments". He is also non-executive chairman of the BIC Group.

Rupert Thompson has joined Thatchers Cider as a non-executive director. Thompson runs an independent consultancy and has extensive commercial experience across brewing, including setting up Refresh UK, which took over Ushers beer, Wychwood Brewery and Brakspear.

Helen Clarke has joined Bpex for a four-month period as knowledge transfer manager covering the northern region.

Professor John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde is to chair the GM Engagement Project, an independent steering group that will advise the FSA on its forthcoming work on GM science.

Elizabeth Melia is the new HR manager for UK and Ireland at Dawn Foods. She joins from Taylor Woodrow where she was support services manager.

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