Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) has graduated 31 senior leaders from 12 African countries on its EDGE Senior Leadership Acceleration Programme, the company said in Johannesburg on 4 November 2026. The cohort is the second generation of EDGE and the first with a pan-African line-up.
CCBA created EDGE as its flagship senior leadership programme and runs it with Henley Business School Africa. The Coca-Cola Company took part in earlier cohorts, and in 2026 CCBA widened the intake to leaders from Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company and Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company. CCBA did not disclose the programme’s cost or how many graduates came from each country.
Inside the curriculum
Participants combined classroom learning with business projects, mentoring and coaching. The syllabus covered strategy, value creation, transformation, commercial decision-making, and leading yourself and your teams. Each participant also presented a business project tied to the company’s priorities as a condition of graduating, so the course ends with work aimed at problems the company actually faces.
Why scale matters
CCBA is the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Africa and the eighth largest in the world by revenue, by its own account. It serves more than 840,000 customers, employs more than 13,000 people and operates in 14 countries, and it says it accounts for over 40 per cent of Coca-Cola ready-to-drink volume sold on the continent. None of these figures was independently confirmed.
Ethiopia’s two graduates
CCBA in Ethiopia says two of its senior leaders completed the programme. They are Moses Luyima, the sales director, and Solomon Tesfaye, the supply chain director. Natasa Prodanovic, CCBA’s chief people and culture officer, said programmes like EDGE show the company’s commitment to investing in its people. CCBA has not said which countries the other graduates came from or what roles they will move into, so any commercial payoff from the programme is not yet measurable.
