For its first hire at partner level for nearly three years France’s largest buyout firm, PAI Partners, has moved to bring one of Europe’s leading consumer executives, Charles Bouaziz, in from the cold.

Bouaziz, aged 49, is synonymous with the rise of the US drinks conglomerate PepsiCo in Europe, having joined in 1991 as a marketing director for France when the entire European subsidiary employed just 15 people. By the time he departed as chief executive of Western Europe almost two decades later, the firm employed more than 3,000 staff across the continent.