Celsius Reorganizes Its Leadership. The Real Test Is Brand Autonomy.

On November 5 2026, Celsius Holdings told the market it is running its US business as three brand divisions, each with its own president reporting to Chairman and CEO John Fieldly. It named two of the three that morning. The one for Alani Nu is still without a named leader.  The announcement landed alongside third-quarter results and a management webcast. So most of the coverage was about the numbers, but The Talent Studios was reading the org chart first.

What Celsius Announced

The three divisions are Celsius, Alani Nu, and Rockstar Energy & Emerging Growth. Marketing, sales, operations and corporate functions stay shared. International stays under its current commercial structure. The appointments apply to US operations. Alex Zigliara becomes president of the Celsius brand. He comes from Fiji Water, where he was global president. Prior, he was CEO of MrBeast’s Feastables and CEO of Clif Bar & Company (now owned by Mondelez), and he spent 22 years at Coca-Cola. That is a long run inside a system, then three jobs that all involved building or steering a brand with a loud owner or a founder legacy.

Rishi Daing becomes president of Rockstar Energy & Emerging Growth. He has been Celsius Holdings’ chief marketing officer since September 2025. His patch covers Rockstar in the US and Canada, plus non-ready-to-drink energy and other functional beverages. He spent 16 years at PepsiCo across Pepsi, Gatorade and Rockstar, and he worked at Mark Anthony Brands, the White Claw maker. Its unclear who will lead marketing.

Alani Nu has no president. Celsius says it is searching and gave no timeline. The company also gave no effective dates, no restructuring cost and no headcount changes.

Fieldly said the new structure is “the next step in how we align the Company to capture those opportunities.” Celsius says the three brands should operate as distinct entities that can pull on the parent’s shared capabilities.

The Activist in the Background

Rockstar founder Russ Savage said in August that he bought a 4.7% stake in Celsius. He has called for sweeping leadership changes, including replacing Fieldly. Today, there is now a fresh outside president in charge of the flagship, it moved a marketing chief to run the brand Savage founded, and creates a second layer of leadership under the CEO. If you wanted to show a restless shareholder that accountability has been spread out, this is the chart you would draw. This structure also gives the board options. A CEO with three presidents is easier to replace, or to promote around, than a CEO who personally runs every brand decision.

Why the Open Alani Nu Seat May Be the Most Consequential

The two appointed presidents bring substantial experience operating within established beverage systems. Alani Nu presents a different leadership challenge. The brand has grown through a distinctive consumer identity, social engagement, rapid innovation and cultural relevance. Its next president must understand how to preserve those advantages while operating within a larger, increasingly integrated beverage platform.

The experience of Poppi following its acquisition by PepsiCo offers a useful caution. In October 2026, PepsiCo disclosed that the estimated value of Poppi’s performance-based earnout had fallen from $278 million at the end of 2025 to just $12 million by September. The adjustment reflects revised expectations around revenue and margin milestones. For Alani Nu’s incoming president, protecting that balance of scaling distribution and achieving the commercial economics may be one of the most important responsibilities of the role.

Celsius’s own results illustrate the trade-off. Alani Nu delivered 24% revenue growth in the third quarter, benefiting from expanded distribution through PepsiCo’s system. Yet the company also reported higher trade investments and billbacks associated with that distribution model, reducing reported net revenue.

For the incoming Alani Nu president, the challenge extends beyond growing sales. It involves protecting brand differentiation, maintaining innovation velocity and ensuring that growth translates into sustainable profitability.

That raises an important organizational question. Celsius has assigned its brand presidents responsibility for strategy and performance while retaining shared marketing, sales and operating functions. How much authority will each president have over the decisions that ultimately determine those results?

The strongest candidate may not be the executive with the most experience inside a global beverage company. It may be someone who has successfully scaled a challenger brand without losing the consumer connection, agility and commercial discipline that made it successful.The effectiveness of Celsius’s new structure will depend not simply on who occupies the three presidential roles, but on whether those leaders have the authority and organizational support to deliver the outcomes for which they are accountable.

What We Are Watching

1. Who gets named for Alani Nu, and how fast. A search with no stated timeline for a brand this central to the growth plan is a long search until proven otherwise.

2. Who runs marketing now. If Daing keeps both jobs for more than a quarter, the structure is thinner than it looks.

3. Whether Fieldly is still CEO a year from now. The release treats him as the center of the model. The activist does not.

Opportunities for Others to Consider

– Name the brand presidents before you name the structure. Celsius announced both together, and that is the right order. It is harder when one seat stays empty, because the market reads the gap.

– Write down what the shared functions owe each brand. If you cannot say it in two sentences, your best outside candidate will say it for you, usually in the final round.

– Hire the Alani Nu type of seat from the category’s fast growers. Big-system experience is useful for the rest of the portfolio. It rarely fits a brand that wins by moving faster than the system.

About The Talent Studios

The Talent Studios is a business-to-consumer focused executive search firm partnering with companies navigating growth, transformation and leadership change. We help consumer organizations identify executives whose capabilities align not simply with the roles companies have held historically, but with the business models, growth channels and organizational structures they are building next.