Beam Suntory: New Senior Vice President, Chief People, Culture & Communications Officer

Beam Suntory has appointed Sarah Langley as Senior Vice President, Chief People, Culture & Communications Officer: succeeding Paula Erickson, who will retire on April 1, 2024, after a 15-year career with the company.

With a career spanning 20 years at Suntory, Langley (pictured above) started in 2004 at Frucor, the company’s beverage arm in Oceania, where she ultimately served as Chief People and Communications Officer from 2008 to 2018. She was then promoted to Suntory Holdings’ Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Global HR, based in Tokyo, where she spearheaded the global talent agenda across Suntory’s companies. Since 2020, Langley has been serving in a hybrid Suntory and Beam Suntory role as Chief Operating Officer, Global People & Culture, and as Beam Suntory’s Vice President HR Asia Pacific.

Langley will be responsible for the company’s global talent strategy, compensation and benefits, culture, learning capability and employee engagement, diversity and inclusion, organizational development and corporate communications. She will report directly to president and CEO Greg Hughes; and serve on the company’s executive leadership team.

A native of New Zealand, Langley earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Psychology and a Master of Arts in Industrial Psychology from Massey University in Auckland. She started her career in consulting with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Sheffield Limited in Oceania before joining Frucor.

Langley will be based at Beam Suntory’s global headquarters in New York City.

Paula Erickson (right) joined the company in 2008, leading Corporate Communications and Public Relations, and in 2014, following the acquisition by Suntory Holdings, she was tapped to join the executive team as Chief Human Resources Officer.

During her tenure, the company experienced tremendous growth, with sales nearly tripled and the company’s talent pool growing from 2,400 to around 6,500 employees across 100 markets.

Under Erickson’s leadership, the company says it has accelerated its diversity, equity and inclusion ambitions, step changed its benefits offerings, achieved “Best Place to Work” rankings around the world, adeptly navigated through the COVID pandemic and built a best-in-class Global Human Resources and Communications team.