Asia-Pacific Power List 2023: Lilly Yip, PepsiCo

Lilly Yip

Chief marketing officer, APAC
PepsiCo     
China
Member since 2020

This is the fourth consecutive year that PepsiCo’s APAC CMO Lilly Yip has made the Power List and with each successive year, her mandate continues to grow. Yip wears many hats at PepsiCo, including the general manager of PepsiCo’s Greater China beverage business as well as its chief sustainability officer.

In a challenging year for the Chinese market given Covid lockdowns, logistics disruptions and ensuing economic downturn, it was necessary for Yip to focus much of her attention on her GM role in China to keep business development and sustainability plans on track, earning kudos from PepsiCo’s APAC CEO for their team’s resilience.

But it was also a huge year of change for PepsiCo on the marketing front as well. After seeing rival Coca-Cola team up with WPP agencies globally, Yip embarked on a very thorough and competitive media agency review process that saw Publicis Groupe selected in China and across Southeast Asia.

While onboarding an entirely new media planning and buying operation was a big enough task, Yip oversaw the launch of Pepsi’s largest food-focused creative campaign across multiple Asian markets, which built in a new purpose-led drive to help local food shops affected by Covid.

Having a broader strategy is important for Yip, who not only guides PepsiCo’s marketing teams across APAC in campaign efforts but helps them accelerate digital transformation, combining data and tech with local insights for a wide portfolio of brands, such as Pepsi, Lay's, Cheetos, Mirinda, Gatorade, and Mountain Dew.  

A management graduate from the University of California Berkeley, Yip spent time at McKinsey, Nestle and FutureBrand before joining PepsiCo in New York in 2004 to work on global corporate strategy.

After being transferred to Pepsi Greater China, Yip worked her way up from business development in Hong Kong to head up insights and marketing for Greater China before taking on her current role.