Courtney Elliott
Senior Commercial Strategy, Sales, and Operations Leader
Coca-Cola
Frisco, TX USA
“If you have an aptitude to learn and the confidence to ask questions, you can position yourself for any position that you’re interested in.”
Videos
By Roadtrip NationCourtney Elliott
Milestones
My road in life has been direct.
I grew up in areas where I was the minority and by the time I was college-aged, I knew I wanted to attend an HBCU to be surrounded by Black excellence.
I graduated from Clark Atlanta University with a chemistry degree—my goal had been to go to medical school but I decided I wanted to take a break and find a job towards the end of college.
Fortunately, my analytical skills from my chemistry degree positioned me to find a job in finance—my first job was with MCI WorldCom as a financial analyst support coordinator.
I spent about 10 years in finance for companies like Accenture and Cingular Wireless before I got the opportunity to join Coca-Cola as a field finance manager.
I’ve been with Coca-Cola for 13 years now and have worked my way up to my current position in franchise leadership for Texas, Oklahoma, and portions of New Mexico and Arkansas.
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Career
Senior Commercial Strategy, Sales, and Operations Leader
I lead franchise management activities and operations across Texas, Oklahoma, and portions of New Mexico and Arkansas.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Business
Food
Working with Others
Day to Day
In franchise leadership, I'm essentially the general manager. All of my work revolves around making sure we deliver on our bottom line annually as well as long term. I'm responsible for joint business planning and putting together the financial plans with our bottlers. I'm also responsible for brand development—so, if we launch a new product, I lead the acceleration of that product where our bottlers have distribution rights. I also spend time accelerating our brands locally.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for college students
If you want to work in business, I recommend pursuing an analytical degree in something like finance, accounting, or even chemistry like me! Having an analytical degree is very beneficial because as long as you can quantify areas of a business, you can do pretty much anything. You just need to have the aptitude to learn and the confidence to ask questions.
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Myself:
"Maybe the grass is greener on the other side. Maybe another job would be better."
