Coca-Cola United: Mike Suco and Crawford Jones

Coca-Cola Bottling Company United has announced two executive leadership changes. Mike Suco has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer; while Crawford Jones has been named Vice President, East Region.

As senior vice president and chief commercial officer, Mike Suco is responsible for numerous areas critical to the execution of the company’s commercial plan, including the National Retail Customer Group, Revenue Growth Management, Corporate Marketing and the On Premise organization. 

Suco returned to the company’s corporate headquarters in Birmingham following five years in Atlanta, where he was vice president of the company’s East Region and responsible for all sales and distribution activities within United’s Georgia territory.  In 2016, under his leadership, the company acquired 10 new facilities and market territories in Georgia, and transitioned more than 2,000 new employees and approximately 30,000 new customers into the company.  The Atlanta Market Unit was the single largest acquisition in United’s history.  

Prior to his role in Atlanta, Suco served as corporate vice president of operational marketing and commercial leadership in the company’s Birmingham headquarters.  He began his career in the Coca-Cola System in 1996 as a market development manager for The Coca-Cola Company.  He joined Coca-Cola UNITED in 2000 as director of marketing and key accounts.  

Crawford Jones, a native of Birmingham, succeeds Suco as vice president of the company’s East Region, based in Atlanta. Jones is responsible for sales and distribution of Coca-Cola products within the state of Georgia.  The East Region represents approximately one-third of the revenues for Coca-Cola United and includes facilities in the following locations throughout Georgia: Metro Atlanta, Athens, Augusta, Brunswick, Dublin, Gainesville, Lawrenceville, Macon, Milledgeville, McRae, Savannah, Statesboro, Sylvester and Waycross.  

For the past decade, Jones has served as senior director of customer management and price revenue growth management, overseeing all national retail customers, pricing and revenue management for the company. Jones started working in the Coca‑Cola System in 2004 with another independent bottler, Coca‑Cola Consolidated, as a management trainee. He joined Coca-Cola United in 2007 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana as a management trainee and later held the roles of key account manager and key account director.