Fall 2026
Ignite Intern – Customer & Commercial
Updated on 7/29/2026
The Coca-Cola Company
10,001+ employees
Manufactures beverage concentrates for bottlers
No salary listed
Berlin, Germany
In Person
On-site in Berlin, Germany; occasional travel up to 25%.
 Business & Strategy (1) |
|---|
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- Educational background: An undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor's degree, or a master's student completing a master's degree in Business administration, Management, or related field
- Right to work: Legal authorisation to work in Germany. No visa sponsorship is provided
- Commitment: Must be available to start October 1, 2026, and commit to 37.5 hours/week for a 12-month internship
- Language: Fluency in English (with strong verbal and written communication skills), German as advantage
- Attributes: Enthusiasm towards Coca-Cola, its brands and its values. Curious, agile, creative and passionate about learning and making a true impact in a high-performance and diverse environment
- Relationship skills: Being inclusive, team-oriented, and adept at building relationships
- Relevant Knowledge: Basic understanding of Coca-Cola franchise System and business operations (as advantage). Strong leadership and project management capabilities, with attention to detail and a sense of initiative. Analytical and good in stakeholder management. Experience in Commercial.
- Skills: Commercialization
- Assist in managing relationships with Bottlers,System network and business partners
- Support the implementation of brand and commercial strategies to drive growth and market share
- Collaborate with System Teams (FLA, Commercial Development, RGM, Shopper and Channel Teams) to optimize product distribution and marketing efforts
- Analyse business performance and identify opportunities for improvement
- Help develop materials and programs for System teams to drive operational excellence
- Contribute to strategic initiatives that enhances short-term and long-term business growth
- German language skills are advantageous
- Basic understanding of Coca-Cola franchise System and business operations (as advantage)
- Strong leadership and project management capabilities, with attention to detail and a sense of initiative (advantage)
- Analytical and stakeholder management skills (advantage)
The Coca-Cola Company makes and sells non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups and distributes them through a franchised network of bottlers worldwide, earning most revenue from concentrate sales. Bottlers mix these concentrates with carbonated water or other ingredients to produce finished drinks that reach consumers. It differs from competitors by operating a long-standing global bottling system across 200+ countries and managing a portfolio of over 500 brands, which helps lower shipping costs and margins. Its goal is to maintain leadership in the global beverage market by growing its bottling network and expanding its product lineup across waters, juices, sports drinks, teas, and coffees.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Atlanta, Georgia
Founded
1892
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Q1 2026 net revenue rose 12% to $12.5B with 35% operating margin.
- North American volume growth offset weaker international demand in Q1 2026.
- Location-exclusive flavors at Universal Kids Resort drive scarcity and consumer buzz.
What critics are saying
- International demand softness caps 2026 organic growth at 4%–5% below forecasts.
- 26x trailing earnings valuation exceeds S&P 500 average, risking sell-off if Q2 misses.
- North America unit chief departure threatens volume momentum in Coca-Cola's core market.
What makes The Coca-Cola Company unique
- Franchised bottling system supplies concentrate to independent partners globally since 1899.
- Over 500 brands span sparkling drinks, water, juices, coffee, and plant-based beverages.
- Concentrate sales generate higher margins and lower shipping costs than finished products.
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Diet Coke culture. It's a lifestyle, not a soda. Photo caption: ron galella (from 1982 radio city music hall Diet Coke premiere with rockettes). I guess when your kids start giving you Diet Coke-themed gifts for Christmas, you realize it's more than just a casual favorite drink. Spare me "that poison will kill you" lessons - as Rizzo used to say in Grease: "there are worse things I could do." I know it's not a healthy protein smoothie, and I limit my intake to one a day, at lunch. The only change to this routine came recently when Coca-Cola disturbed my system by introducing Diet Coke Cherry. Long a fan of the "freestyle" machine at Wendy's, Burger King, Wawa and some other locations, I love making Cherry Vanilla Diet Cokes, so when Diet Coke Cherry in a can was released, I switched over. Now I'm having a hard time finding it in the grocery store (get it together, Acme!) and worried it's going to be dropped, so I'm hoarding it when and if I see it someplace. In February, Coca-Cola re-released Diet Coke Cherry, originally available when I was in high school in the 1980s. It's a 40th throwback; the company enthusiastically announced as part of their news release "celebrating four decades of cherry-flavored innovation": "Introduced in 1985 as Coca-Cola's first-ever flavored extension of the trademark brand, Cherry Coke established a legacy that continues to influence beverage culture today. In 2026, Coca-Cola builds on that heritage by offering consumers more cherry-forward choices than ever before, reflecting growing demand for nostalgic flavors." "Cherry-forward" sounds like a Gen Z marketing chick is unnecessarily woke about "beverage culture." Relax, Coca-Cola: Cherry Forward would sound better as a drag queen name. But in what they ridiculously call their "cherry portfolio," they introduced Coca-Cola Cherry Float and also Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry Float, for a total of five (there's also Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry) cherry-related flavors. Here's the problem: stores only have x amount of room on the shelves for Coca-Cola, and with the Mormons making "dirty soda" the hottest thing since coffee, brands are rushing new flavors to market. There's not enough room for five varieties of "Cherry-forward" Coca-Cola on the shelves and Diet Coke Cherry hasn't appeared in my regular grocery store all summer. I've stopped in random Walmarts and no-name grocery stores searching for the soda aisle. I ran into someone recently in a neighboring town who said "I didn't know you shopped here!" and mumbled something about grabbing something for dinner while in the area because I was too embarrassed to admit the cherry Diet Coke scavenger hunt. I even have mini-cans of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry Float that I'll mix into my Diet Coke for when I'm running low on the endangered "cherry-flavored innovation." Diet Coke is a culture. When I'm on Instagram, the algorithm will toss funny sketches, Diet Coke art items or Gen Z "fridge cigarette" content because Gen Z invented everything before they were even born and nothing existed before TikTok. Algorithms (and my fellow Diet Coke addict brother) being what they are, I consume a lot of Diet Coke content, and agree with my fellow DC community members that there's a hierarchy in the way Splice Today LLC consume the beverage. DC fans generally consider the aluminum can the day-to-day standard. Splice Today LLC know a McDonald's Diet Coke is superior and will go through their drive-through for Diet Cokes only. I'm not a fan of supporting Jesus Chicken and rarely go (nuggets for my son and that peppermint milkshake they have at Christmas are the exceptions), but there's something to be said for the environment-be-damned Diet Coke served in styrofoam at Chick-fil-A since it stays cold longer. You'll never see me carrying this, as my gay card would be evoked immediately. If there was a Wawa next to a McDonalds, I'd go into the Wawa because I love that freestyle machine Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke that you can only get in that way. My DC fam knows ball, which means Diet Coke in a plastic bottle is always a last resort, especially a two-liter bottle where you can hear it go flat as soon as you twist that top. A friend gave me a "I need a Diet Coke" sweatshirt for my birthday. As a miniaturist I'm in love with my mini-Diet Coke cans. It's a "beverage culture" I've been a part of for four decades and if it ends up being the thing that offs me, that's on me. But there are worse things I could do. - Follow Mary McCarthy on Substack, Instagram & Bluesky
Choctaw Travel Plaza raises over $40,000 for newly launched Scholarship Fund. Choctaw Travel Plaza raised $42,000 during the first round of fundraising for the Choctaw Travel Plaza Scholarship Fund, which was launched in April. Choctaw Travel Plaza partnered with Coca-Cola to seed the fund, which will help send local Choctaw tribal students to college or trade school. Community members were able to participate in fundraising by purchasing a commemorative cup, which was available at all Choctaw Travel Plazas across the reservation through June 30. Over the summer, travelers bought approximately 9,000 cups to help raise $21,000. The Chahta Foundation, Choctaw Nation's non-profit organization, matched the funds to bring the total to $42,000. Upload date: 07/22/2026 06:00 AM
Is Coca-Cola woke in 2026? Short answer: yes. While much of corporate America spent 2024 through 2026 quietly deleting diversity pages and ghosting Pride parades, Coca-Cola did the opposite - it dug in. The Atlanta beverage giant earns a 74/100 on the BuyWokeFree Woke Score, landing it firmly in "extremely woke" territory. Here is exactly how it got there, dimension by dimension, and which woke-free swaps you can grab instead. The 74/100 breakdown: six dimensions of woke. The BuyWokeFree score measures six things: ESG reporting, DEI programs, Pride sponsorships, the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index (CEI), left-leaning political money, and CEO Action for Diversity participation. Coca-Cola lights up nearly every one of them. The only dimension where it does not max out is a partial one - and even that reflects a paperwork gap, not a change of heart. Recommended Products As an Amazon Associate Buy Woke Free earn from qualifying purchases. ESG and DEI: doubling down while rivals ran. Here is the tell. In its February 2025 annual filing, Coca-Cola defended DEI as critical to growth, warning that the business could suffer if it failed to retain "top talent with diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds," as reported by Fox 5 Atlanta. That is not the language of a company backing away - it is a company planting its flag. When the National Legal and Policy Center brought a shareholder proposal in April 2025 to strip DEI goals out of executive compensation, it collected roughly 1% of the vote, according to Fortune. Read that again: management wanted diversity targets baked into how executives get paid, and shareholders sided with them by a 99-to-1 margin. The company still publicizes goals such as putting women in 50% of senior leadership roles by 2030. Pride and the HRC Corporate Equality Index. Coca-Cola earned a perfect 100 and the Equality 100 Award on the Human Rights Campaign's 2025 Corporate Equality Index, and HRC's company profile still lists a 100 rating for 2026 - though it is marked "unverified" because Coca-Cola did not submit a fresh 2026 survey. That non-submission is the only visible sign of distancing in the entire record, and it is a faint one. The brand stayed a Pride sponsor where it counts: the Coca-Cola Mainstage headlined the October 2025 Atlanta Pride Festival, keeping the company's name on the marquee of one of the South's largest Pride events. Political money and CEO Action. The company's PAC and executives carry a long record of left-leaning political giving, and Coca-Cola signed the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge. Layer on the Coca-Cola Foundation's philanthropy - more than $106 million funneled into 230 initiatives spanning racial-equity and climate causes - and the tilt is unmistakable. This is not a neutral soda company that happens to write a few checks; it is an activist brand with an infrastructure to match. The track record that built the score. A 74 is not about one bad week - it is a multi-year pattern. In 2021, CEO James Quincey called Georgia's election law "unacceptable" and "a step backward," triggering conservative boycott calls, as reported by CNBC. That same year, a "Try to be less white" training slide went viral; Coca-Cola said the LinkedIn Learning material was an optional third-party course and not part of its required curriculum, a characterization Snopes confirmed. In 2025, viral claims that the company reported its own workers to ICE were rated unfounded by PolitiFact - but the boycott calls still dented Hispanic-market sales, per Food Dive. Fair or not, the picture shoppers keep seeing is a soft-drink maker that wades into politics and pays for it at the register. Recommended Products As an Amazon Associate Buy Woke Free earn from qualifying purchases. Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi: no refuge across the aisle. Tempted to just switch red cans for blue? Bad news: PepsiCo scores an even worse 90/100. PepsiCo trimmed some public DEI language during the corporate retreat, but it remains one of the most woke names in the beverage aisle. Swapping Coke for Pepsi is trading one activist multinational for another - a lateral move, not an escape. What a 74/100 means for your cart. For conservative and faith-driven shoppers, the math is simple. Coca-Cola did not stumble into the woke era by accident; it chose to stay when the tide went out. Every case of Coke is a small vote for an agenda you may not share - DEI hiring targets tied to executive pay, a headlining Pride sponsorship, and a foundation pouring nine figures into progressive causes. The good news is that the shelf is far deeper than two cola giants. Recommended Products As an Amazon Associate Buy Woke Free earn from qualifying purchases. Woke-Free alternatives to reach for. Its database tracks independent American beverage makers that keep politics out of your cart. Shops like Evergreen Curated (2/100) put together craft, non-woke drink selections, while family roasters such as Colorado Coffee Company (1/100) and Wacker Coffee Co. (1/100) prove your daily caffeine does not have to bankroll a Pride mainstage. Browse the full lineup on its Non-Woke Food & Beverage Brands page and vote with your wallet. The bottom line. Coca-Cola's 74/100 reflects sustained DEI commitments, continued Pride sponsorship, a perfect HRC rating and years of left-leaning activism - a cumulative record, not a single controversy. If you want the receipts, check the full Coca-Cola profile and its cited sources before your next grocery run. Then pick a brand that earns your dollar instead of lecturing you for it. Recommended Woke-Free Products As an Amazon Associate Buy Woke Free earn from qualifying purchases. Be Prepared, Stay Independent
Coca-Cola celebrates culture At ESSENCE FEST 2026. Seen on the ESSENCE scene: Coca-Cola spotlights entrepreneurship, Eva Marcille, Mario, Normani & other sizzling stars in NOLA. In its 31st consecutive year as an ESSENCE Festival partner, Coca-Cola once again delivered immaculate vibes for attendees. Published on July 8, 2026 At ESSENCE Festival of Culture, the big stages always get plenty of attention, but Coca-Cola made sure its own footprint felt like a full experience of its own. During the 2026 festival weekend in New Orleans, Coca-Cola's Shine City became a daytime hub for music, celebrity moments, community connection, HBCU pride and entrepreneurship - all under the brand's "Every Side Shines" platform. A press release reports that the activation took over space inside the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center from July 3-5, giving festivalgoers a place to catch live performances, interactive programming and cultural conversations before the festival shifted into its nighttime concert energy. Coca-Cola, which celebrated its 31st consecutive year as an ESSENCE Festival partner, centered the experience on music, wellness, storytelling and connection through Coca-Cola, Simply and smartwater. Of course, the music was a major part of the weekend. Destin Conrad helped kick things off Friday, July 3, with a performance on the Coca-Cola Main Stage, while Kenny Burns and Coltrane Curtis also stopped by the Shine City experience. On Saturday, July 4, Normani and Coi Leray brought even more star power to the Coca-Cola Main Stage, with Ryan Destiny also linking up with Normani at Shine City. By Sunday, July 5, Mario closed out the weekend's run of Coca-Cola performances, giving fans another R&B moment to remember. But Shine City was not just about who grabbed the mic. Coca-Cola also used the weekend to highlight community impact and HBCU culture through its "The World Is My Yard" platform. One of the standout moments came when Eva Marcille presented a donation check to Grambling State University on the Coca-Cola Main Stage, while Grambling's World-Famed Tiger Marching Band helped lead Coca-Cola's Shine Parade through the space. That HBCU focus went beyond celebration, too. Coca-Cola's programming included dedicated office hours with representatives from 15 HBCUs, giving prospective students and families direct access to information about admissions, campus life, academic programs, and educational pathways. It turned Shine City into more than a branded activation; it became a real resource for young people thinking about their next step. The weekend also brought out familiar faces across entertainment and culture, including Lance Gross, Mannie Fresh, Ryan Destiny, Eva Marcille, Normani, Kenny Burns and Coltrane Curtis. Together, those appearances helped Coca-Cola's space feel like a mix of concert stage, community block party, networking hub and cultural celebration - which makes sense for a brand that has been tied to ESSENCE Fest for more than three decades. With performances from Mario, Normani, Coi Leray and Destin Conrad, a major HBCU moment for Grambling State University, and programming built around sisterhood, entrepreneurship and access, Coca-Cola's Shine City gave festivalgoers plenty to take in beyond the main festival stages. Check out some of the best moments from Coca-Cola's 2026 ESSENCE Festival of Culture activation below. GRAMMY-nominated artist Destin Conrad performs on the Coca-Cola Main Stage during the 2026 ESSENCE Festival of Culture presented by Coca-Cola at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on July 3, 2026, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Coca-Cola launches five exclusive flavours for tourist resort. Five exclusive Coca-Cola drinks have been added to the lineup at Universal Kids Resort in Frisco, Texas, giving visitors a new set of flavours to try at the family-themed park. Reports say the drinks are available only at the resort and are served through Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. The new drinks are Minute Maid Triceratops Twist, Sprite Curious Cooler, Minute Maid Poppin' Punch, Fanta Easy Peasy Orange Squeezy and Hi-C Pineapple Passion. According to reports from the resort, the drinks are custom blends made from familiar Coca-Cola brands and were created specifically for the resort. Sprite Curious Cooler reportedly mixes Sprite Classic, Vanilla and Lymonade. Fanta Easy Peasy Orange Squeezy blends Fanta Orange with Sprite Vanilla. Minute Maid Poppin' Punch combines Minute Maid Fruit Punch and Pink Lemonade, while Minute Maid Triceratops Twist mixes Peach, Orange and Strawberry Lemonade. Hi-C Pineapple Passion brings together pineapple and lemon flavors. The drink rollout comes as Universal Kids Resort opens in Frisco as Universal's first theme park designed for children. Preview reports say the resort includes lands inspired by popular family characters and is built to give younger guests a more playful experience. Coca-Cola Freestyle machines already allow customers to pick from a wide range of mixes, and the resort's version adds location-only flavors to the lineup. That makes the drinks part of the park's broader effort to offer something guests cannot get everywhere else. For visitors, the new drinks add a simple but noticeable extra to the park experience. For Universal, they help turn a standard soda stop into another themed attraction tied to the resort's identity.