Fast growth

The Pepsi-Cola Company was launched in 1902 by Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist and businessman in Duplin County, North Carolina. It became PepsiCo in 1965 when it merged with Frito Lay, Inc., and today, it’s one of the largest^[5] companies in the world, with a footprint in 200 countries, a $191 billion valuation, and a growth rate^[6] of almost 4% a year.

“What we see is a consumer that really likes our products, and is buying them at an increasing rate,” Hugh Johnston, the company’s CFO, told CNBC^[7].

Leonard Schutzman, a former senior vice president and treasurer of PepsiCo, said companies of Pepsi’s size and history get trapped by confining their people to narrow roles, but that was not the case with PepsiCo. “Most companies have silos that try to put you in a career path that’s based on whatever your functional skill is, and that’s not good,” he said^[8]. “They stop multidisciplinary, cross-functional thinking, which you need to be a leader.”

In Fast Track Up The Corporate Ladder, his 2016 book based in part on his PepsiCo years, Schutzman called the company a great training ground for CFOs. “It was … an environment that encouraged outside-the-box thinking and prudent risk-taking,” he said^[9]. 

Scott Simmons, managing director of Crist|Kolder Associates, an executive search firm that specializes in CFO and CEO placements, said the company has long been considered a go-to training ground for top CFO talent.   

“Their model allows for good operational finance training,” he told CFO Dive. “They’re decentralized. If you are a division CFO, you have responsibility for that P&L, so because operational finance is number one on the list of our clients’ requests, and since Pepsi gives its finance executives a chance to understand the business and the operating environment, it’s just a great place to round out those skills.”

Brian Newman is the most recent^[10] PepsiCo executive to take over the finance function at a major company. He became CFO of UPS, the largest for-hire carrier in North America, in September, after overseeing PepsiCo’s finance and operational functions for Latin America.