Butool Rizvi appointed senior marketing director for Central Asia and Caucasus at Coca-Cola

DUBAI: Coca-Cola is sending one of its most well-travelled marketing minds to Almaty. Butool Rizvi has been named senior marketing director for the Central Asia and Caucasus region at The Coca-Cola Company, effective April 2026, stepping into a role that spans some of the most dynamically growing consumer markets on the planet.

Rizvi announced the move on LinkedIn with characteristic restraint, citing humility and curiosity as guiding instincts for the new chapter. The region, Rizvi noted, is brimming with promise, opportunity and diversity. Given the career behind this appointment, that enthusiasm is entirely earned.

The role caps nearly five years at Coca-Cola, during which Rizvi moved rapidly through the company’s Eurasia and Middle East operations. Joining in August 2021 as consumer and shopper content lead for the Eurasia and Middle East region, based in the United Arab Emirates, Rizvi moved within six months into a senior regional category manager role covering hydration across the same geography, a position held for nearly two years. In July 2023 came a step up to senior regional marketing manager for the Coca-Cola trademark across Eurasia and the Middle East, and by January 2024 an elevation to regional brand director for the same trademark, a role held for two and a half years before the current appointment.

Before Coca-Cola, Rizvi spent a decade and two months at Unilever in Pakistan, working through one of the most rigorous brand-building apprenticeships the FMCG world offers. Starting as a management trainee in July 2011 across Wall’s, the career progressed through assistant brand manager for Wall’s Paddle Pop, assistant brand manager for the Wall’s in-home portfolio, brand manager for spreads and desserts, brand manager for Knorr and drinks, senior brand manager for Knorr and drinks, senior brand manager for home care, and finally marketing manager for home care until August 2021.

Earlier stops included a consultancy stint at Engro Foods on an economic and technical feasibility project for a waste-to-energy initiative, a project manager role in brand planning at Engro Corp, a brand internship at Colgate Palmolive, and an analyst trainee position at TRG, The Resource Group.

Fifteen years, two FMCG giants, markets stretching from Karachi to Dubai to Almaty. Rizvi now inherits a region where the rules of consumer behaviour are still being written and the appetite for global brands is accelerating fast. For Coca-Cola, placing an operator of this calibre in charge looks less like a posting and more like a statement of intent.