[MUSIC]
[APPLAUSE]
>> Let's see, good afternoon.
>> Good afternoon.
>> At Walmart,
we tend to speak back to each other.
We're going to have some time
in a little bit to talk so
please be thinking about what
you might want to ask us about.
I'm really excited,
Indra, that you're here.
>> I am too.
>> They told me I couldn't come
back unless I brought you with me.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And
I said I'd come back only if you
were going to do it with me.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I want to start with maybe the most
important question, and that is,
when you're in your University and
you were playing cricket, what position
did you plan on the university team?
>> [LAUGH]
>> You know, first of all,
do you know what cricket is all about?
>> I do not.
And I-
>> Okay, so.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Still not
going to make a difference
what I tell you.
>> I'm not really very interested either.
>> Okay, okay.
[LAUGH]
>> Go ahead.
Let me-
>> What position did you placed here?
>> I opened the busing and the bowling.
[SOUND]
>> Someone knows what that means.
It's really great.
[LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> Are you impress?
>> Leadership.
>> Are you impress?
>> I think so, yeah.
>> Then, I was also the captain
of the Cricket team.
>> That was kind of my point.
She's a leader.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I have known Indra for a really
long time, and I was thinking about
what words I would use to describe her.
And some of them would be, visionary,
competitive, tough-minded, caring.
>> Indra makes things happen.
She has a natural leadership
characteristic that you have
used not only to lead PepsiCo and
in your previous roles, but
you also influenced Walmart in a big way.
>> Mm.
I appreciate it, Doug, but
let me give you the compliment back.
Doug and I know each other for
a long, long time.
And I've always referred to
Doug as not just Doug McMillon,
I'd call him Doug McMillon Walton,
because he represents the best of Walmart,
the values of Walmart.
And believe me, even though we're
a generation apart in age, Doug.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I'm not sure.
>> I'm much older.
I've learned so much from Doug,
the way he operates this large company.
And is repositioning it, and so
I think this is a two person back slapping
society and I'm the charter member of it.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So
as we think about what these people might
be interested in or benefit from the most,
the first thing that comes
to my mind is change.
And I know your business well enough and
know what you're thinking well enough to
know that you're facing a situation where
the world is changing very dramatically.
People are changing, the environment
you're operating is changing and
you're trying to position PepsiCo for
the future.
So maybe we start out with
starting out talking about
what you see that convinces you
that PepsiCo needs a change and
what is it that you are trying to
accomplish during your tenure.
>> It's many questions nested in one but
let me take a shot at it.
I think every company today,
the CEOs of every company,
are looking at the environment and
sort of the investor expects you
to be this duck that's just sort
of swimming across the water.
And in the past these ducks
would sort of furiously
swim underneath the water
just to move ahead.
Now, it's like you've got to paddle on
steroids because the pace of change is so
enormous that you've got to paddle even
faster just to make small movements.
And nobody is going to give you
a break and say you can slow down or
you can actually stay in place for awhile.
What's changing?
And I'll talk about the food and
beverage industry because in a way
our interests intersect there.
Every aspect of the business is changing.
What is healthy food is changing.
What do people want to eat and
drink is changing.
How should products be
labeled has not been defined.
There is no authority that defines it.
Supply change are globalizing yet
traceability and
safety standards have
not been established.
There's an NGO in every corner.
So, there's somebody there calling us
out when don't do things right but
then there's no standard to look at
in terms of what we need to do right.
The retail environment is changing
whether it's the emergence of
Walmart in the 90s and the year 2000s or
now the hard discounters and
the emergence of e-commerce.
Everything about the world is changing.
And then, right here in Silicon Valley,
all of the best and
brightest that we want in our companies
are being recruited by these startups.
So we have a tough time recruiting
the right talent to run our companies.
I'm speaking to all of you, so
I think, what happens is that,
we are facing unprecedented
change in our business models.
And on top of that, we have to globalize,
but the world is a tough place right now.
We've got economic volatility,
macro-economic crises in many,
many places, political upheaval.
So I think companies like ours,
if you really want to keep performing,
you've almost gotta change
your model all the time.
And Klaus Schwab of the world
economic forum talks about this and
says, you've always gotta be in beta.
It sounds wonderful as a set of words, but
when you actually have to practice
in the company, it's pretty scary.
Because it's not motivating
a small group of start ups or
a small group of employees who have
the same thinking that you do.
We have 260,000 employees and
when you decide to zag and
zig you got to tell them what you're
going to be doing, why you're doing it.
How it's going to impact them and
why they all have to some
along with you on the journey.
Let me give you examples when we decided
to change our product portfolio to go for
a predominantly fun for you product
line to including more better for
you, good for you products.
Different profitability, very different
product line, closer to agriculture.
Changed the model in the company.
Our employees had to go,
what is she doing?
Why do we have to change?
We're doing pretty well selling these
products, why do we have to change?
But the challenge of the leader
is looking around the corner and
making the change before it's
too late to make the change.
I remember as late as 2007 or 2008.
Going to see investors.
And they looked at me and said,
why do you have to change your portfolio?
We are American.
We like soda and chips.
Your job is to sell more soda and chips.
And I sat there in shock,
because every trend that I was seeing,
indicated that the consumption of
these categories was slowing down.
And I looked at the investor and
I said have you changed your eating and
drinking habits.
And that person said yeah, but
forget me I'm not the normal consumer.
I said the problem is many
consumers are like you.
They've changed their eating and
drinking habits.
Today, that same investor says
to me why can't you go faster.
Why you so
slow at making a portfolio change?
It's because people like you wrote
a ballast for me, you didn't let me go
faster because you always criticize what I
was doing, all right, but that's reality.
So I think we're in a world
of unprecedented change
where companies, the CEOs,
the DNA of the company, has to change.
And we all have to change at a point
when short term is abundance.
Everybody wants the results today.
And the tolerance you have to make
the change on a large scale is not there.
And I'm sure you're facing
the same issues, Doug.
And I mean,
I watch it in action at Walmart.
So tell me a bit about
what you're going through?
I wanted to ask you the questions.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I already have another one.
>> Either way.
>> I think it’s very similar.
I mean you know where you are and
you develop a vision for
where you need to be and trying to get
from here to there is the hard part.
I feel like that the vision that we have,
collectively, is improving all the time.
But turning around and moving an
organization that's older than 50 years,
that was built for
certain purpose, with 2.3 million people,
is a big part of the challenge.
And the last time I was here,
I admitted that I have envy for
those who were at a startup, because
you can write your culture on the wall,
or your values on the board,
and you can go that direction,
you get to create something
rather than change something.
And changing something feels harder.
And then I said to anyone who wants
a great challenge, let me know and
we'll hire you at Walmart.
I had one person call me.
[LAUGH] So, you know, it is hard and
I think these people are smart
enough to figure that out.
>> That's true.
>> Let's go to learning.
You mentioned that you're seeing what
you believe the company should become.
You didn't arrive in this position
knowing everything that you know now.
How do you go about learning as
an individual and using the knowledge that
you are picking up to shape the future
because as you know strategic planning
cycles are gone now, its strategy is
being shaped hourly not annually.
>> The one big lesson I've learned,
Doug, is that if you just depend on
the traditional strategic planning cycle,
or depend on a standard set of consulting
reports, you actually are going to
do your company a big disservice.
And our CEOs and
leaders have to be life long students and
not just students in sense of attending
courses or reading a book or two.
You've gotta learn how to read widely,
walk the market,
look at trends in the market place,
make connections that don't seem obvious.
And start to paint pictures
of what the future could be.
And then watch consumer behavior.
I'll give you an example.
Ten years ago or maybe 15 years
ago if you came to PepsiCo and
looked at all the beverages that
we're being served on the side
tables when we're having meetings.
Most of the people will be
consuming full sugar beverages.
About ten years ago the trend shifted.
Maybe 20 years ago they
were drinking full sugar.
Ten years ago they shifted to diet drinks.
But five years ago they were
drinking more bottled water.
Now the point I make to
my guys is guys don't
you don't need to hire a consultant
to tell you where the trends are.
You just have to look at our side table.
Remember the number of
faces we use to have for
regular sugar Pepsi versus diet
Pepsi versus bottled water now.
If you're all drinking bottled water or
drinking zero calorie beverages,
why do we think we're not
representative of the consumer?
Very often I think what
happens is we separate out
the consumer out there
from the consumer in us.
We are the consumer.
And the more we can bring the two together
and say we too are representative of
the consumer outside,
I think it will be better we go out and
our children play with other children,
we see other families.
And when they moderate certain
products that we sell,
in terms of what's given to kids,
that's a trend, okay?
So, we've gotta watch all of these things.
And too often, I think, us leaders
think what consultants tell us, or
what certain reports say, or
certain books say, is the gospel.
It's really not.
We have to become our own data collectors,
data analyzers and then shape creators.
And I think that's the toughest thing
because people who are rewriting the rules
have to create the shapes and people don't
like that because they have a traditional
model of how things work and they hate
people who upset status quo and I think
both of us are upsetting status quo in
a big way and it's tough but it's fun.
>> It is.
It's sometime to take your kind a business
hat off and be a customer or consumer and
I'll admit when I'm working,
like yesterday I went to Palm Springs and
visited a Super Center,
I'll put my Walmart badge on and
I walk into that store, and
I have a certain mindset.
On the weekend, I went shopping.
Because we needed milk and
some things at home.
And my vision of that store-
>> Did you go to Walmart?
>> Of course.
>> [LAUGH]
I'm not stupid, I mean.
>> [LAUGH]
But
I just experienced out of stocks
differently, everything felt different.
And staying objective and
being in the moment is something
that I continue to work on whether
it's a mobile app or the store.
>> Yeah, I do market tours every weekend.
The first few years that I was a CEO,
I'd take pictures of what I saw on the
store and I'd download it to my people and
say, the data stops here,
this doesn't look right.
I mean I'd go on market
tours sort of about a, two,
three hour radius from my home.
Then I realized that every
division in the US had some people
waiting in the office for my emails to
respond to that quickly and I thought it
was a terrible way to run a company, that
a CEO's out in the market and you've got
a SWAT team sitting in the office waiting
for the lousy photographs to come in.
So I stopped sending the photographs,
but I still do the market too, and
I agonize over it.
Just like you,
I go why is the Gatorade out of stock
when the temperature's 75 degrees.
Why didn't we have a second delivery,
or why didn't we do
a second delivery of Frito Lay products
when we have a holiday weekend?
And now I'm just learning to
just agonize internally and
dump on people Monday-
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] It's tough, I gotta tell you,
it's tough.
But when you do that you really experience
your business from the consumer's eyes,
all the retailer's eyes, because I
know how you care about other stocks.
So, when I go to the Norwalk,
Walmart or look at the shelves and
I see out of stocks.
I feel for you.
>> [LAUGH]
>> As I do for me.
>> Our in stock set by the way.
>> Yeah.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Let's talk about design for a minute.
A month or
two ago we were talking on the phone,
and you tried to get met to go to Italy,
or was it Milan?
>> The Milan Design Show.
>> Which I thought was kind
of a surprising invitation,
I don't get invited to
Milan very frequently.
>> [LAUGH]
>> You mean you missed a great one.
>> Tell me, why did you go and why were
you thinking that I should also be there?
>> Do you know anything
about the Milan design show?
>> Only what you told me on the phone.
>> [LAUGH] Okay, let me tell you.
A few years ago, we started
a design capability inside PepsiCo.
What do I mean by design capability?
And I have to tell you a little story
to bring you into the design loop.
When I first became CEO in 2006,
as I looked at our products,
I looked at our packaging, I looked
at how we put things on the shelf.
I thought they were singularly all
right and in some cases unimpressive.
And I thought that we need a dash
of design thinking in the company.
So I gave all of my direct reports,
about 16 of them,
a photo album, a blank photo album and
a camera and I said.
For the next three months, I want you to
go around taking a picture of anything
that you think constitutes design.
Anything, it could be a pencil,
it could be a clip, it could be a teapot.
Anything, anything you want.
Just fill this book for
the next three months and give me a copy.
Give it to me so
that I know what the issues are I have
to handle in terms of design thinking.
Here's the surprising finding.
Half the people didn't
turn the book in at all.
Half the executives.
The few that turned it in, a few of them
had their wives fill it in for them.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Two executives hired a professional
designer to fill the book in.
And told me they did.
But the few that actually filled in
the book I still have them with me as
a mementos of how bad we were.
It was a horror because what they thought
was design was not what design was.
So let me now tell you what is design?
To me design is something that you
embed into a product or a service or
an offering that romances the consumer and
draws them to the shelf or
to the product, or
to the service or whatever it is.
It's how you think about the shape
of the product, how it's presented,
how it's talked about.
Not just the color of the package
everything in terms of the experience that
actually draws the consumer in.
And we never though about design but
really thought about it as Is
the yellow on the Lays bag right?
Should we put an extra swirl of red?
Or should we put an extra
emoji on the Pepsi bottle?
So, our definition of design was very,
very, I hate to use the word,
but primitive.
And I was part of that group.
So we all went to design school and
learned all about design.
Not in terms of the package, but
all the way down into design of a product.
Example, when you eat Doritos,
how many of you are Doritos consumer here?
I love it.
So when you eat Doritos,
when you get to the bottom of the bag,
a typical guy would take
the Doritos bag and just do this.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Okay?
Because you sort of eat
the crumbs that way.
Women don't do that.
Women try to be very delicate putting
their hand and taking the last Doritos.
But then you're leaving about 5%
of the Doritos in the bag, okay?
>> [LAUGH]
>> But
because they're little crumbs there,
which taste awesome.
But in our package design, why don't we
figure out a product design for Doritos?
That is completely different that a woman
can actually put in a put in a purse, so
that it doesn't crumple, and you can
actually eat it in a more delicate way but
all the way down to last 5%.
I'm using Doritos.
>> Indra is solving real
world problems here.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> Right in front of you.
>> Doug.
>> It's good stuff.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Doug.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> I gotta tell you,
if I solved the problems
you get more sales.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] So it is a real world problem.
At the end of the day,
I worry about one thing.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Growing my sales at Walmart.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But leaving that aside, so that's
an example of how you take design thinking
all the way to the product design itself.
The other is when you think
about a food service machine,
in the past with the standard machines.
And now with the new spire machines
we have which are slowly rolling out.
You can have almost 400, 500 variants.
But the machine looks
like a beautiful iPad,
but even more in
an aesthetically pleasing way.
And so, you bring design into a day to
day experience that was quite boring so
that's what design thinking
is doing to PepsiCo.
We got amazing designers we've hired.
In Milan every year they have
a design week where everything from
furniture to lighting
to day to day products,
you see the best of design from the best
designers showcased all around Milan.
The whole city becomes a design,
sort of a bazaar of designs.
And it's just a phenomenal experience to
go there and just see what's going on.
In the last few years,
3 years ago I had just visited Milan for
the first time, from a design perspective.
Two years ago we started to build a Pepsi
design experience, where we actually had
a big warehouse that we converted design
experiences with PepsiCo products.
So we had an experience
that we called the fizz.
Looked like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory, how do you make your own
soda with all kinds of toppings,
just a fabulous experience.
We had Lipton Pure Leaf Tea.
How can you serve tea in an authentic way,
almost like a tea house cafe?
What can you do with the Gatorade bottle?
The new bottle with the sensors
that athletes can now drink, and
it'll, sense your saliva and
tell you exactly, what extra electrolytes
you need to put into your body.
So we showcase some of the stuff
in a very, uplifting way.
And, what was wonderful
is the big magazines,
the design magazines wrote that there
were two exhibits that stood out in
Milan this year from
a consumer perspective.
One was Nike and the other was PepsiCo.
And so I thought we'd landed.
It was a great thing.
You missed a great one.
Next year.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Next year.
>> Next year.
>> That's a lot of progress.
>> It is.
>> From one story to another.
>> And I'd like you to visit
our design studio some time.
Phenomenal designs.
We have a long ways to go Doug.
A long ways to go.
But they're making progress.
>> Yeah,
I think it's going to matter to us.
It feels like what's happening in retail
is that the needs that customers have
are being outsourced to the Internet
whether it's mobile or voice or
whatever comes next in the future
increasingly, so people are not going to
have to think about staying in stock
on Pepsi, it's just going to happen.
And we're going to play a role in that
process through our supply chain.
>> But even on something like a Pepsi,
if we keep thinking of it as
the cola that was invented in 1893.
That's like being
the custodians of a utility.
That is not the business we are in.
Question is how do you bring excitement
into this category again and again?
Because this is a heritage brand,
so we're doing several things.
Whole range of craft sodas,
lower sugar offerings,
trying to make Pepsi more of
make my own beverage at home.
So we're playing with Pepsi in so
many ways.
1893, the new, cola that we launched,
is a craft soda.
Doing very well where it is.
The make my own Pepsi that's being sold,
interesting consumer
base it's bringing in.
And the lower sugar offerings
of Pepsi with great taste,
will go into to the market.
Will they all be as block
buster as the original Pepsi?
Probably not.
But they will stem the decline of
a category while we launch all kinds of
new beverages on top.
So-
>> The emotional component,
not just the utilitarian
aspect of your product.
>> That's exactly right.
Yeah, because Pepsi is not a drink,
it's an experience,
it's a brand that as time,
timely I would say,
because it defines culture,
it defines sports, it defines music.
And, I still remember a famous music
producer in California once said to me,
when I ran into him he said,
I don't have any young musical artists
that are worthy of a Pepsi contract.
That's a big statement,
that are worthy of a Pepsi contract.
Because, to be associated with Pepsi,
that launched so
many young faces was a big thing.
Whether it was Micheal Jackson, or Britney
Spears, or Madonna, or Christina Aguilera,
they all made their success working with
Pepsi, they were known as Pepsi stars.
And so, he said I don't have any young
people that are worthy of Pepsi contracts
so the Pepsi brand is absolutely
associated with culture-defining moments.
And so, we have to figure
out how to make the product
come in tune with the brand even
more as the consumer changes.
>> You can probably pick up on some of the
themes, but what happens is as companies
get older and larger, they start
specializing within the business.
And it replicates what you've done before.
So in Walmart, we have logisticians,
and merchants, and marketers, and
lawyers, and everybody specializes and
you end up with these silos that are,
by design in some instances, created
to just keep doing what you're doing.
And then, disruption happens, and you have
to figure out how to take an older company
and a larger company and change it
back to being more entrepreneurial
move with speed and change it.
And you can hear those names and
then their story and
it's the same on our story and
I think a lot of what we're believing at
the moment is that we're going to help
transform the company using technology.
We can hire talent, we have hired talent,
we can invest, and do a lot of that.
But over time, what will differentiate us,
and ultimately enable us to win and
have a role to play in
society is still humanity.
It's still our culture, it's still our
people, but getting from where we are now
to there will require cultural change in
addition to advancements in technology.
And that's an interesting business
challenge to take on when you at our
scale.
>> I think the big question for all of us,
Douglas, there's been a lot written about,
you've got to preserve history and
the heritage of the company
while you make the change.
Sometimes I wonder if it's a ballast.
I'll tell you why, because, yeah,
you should respect the heritage.
You should respect the culture.
Be cognizant of where you came from but,
I'll speak for
myself, I'd say maybe I was a little
too respectful of the heritage and
culture because what happens is.
When you have companies where people
are in the company for long time and
PepsiCo's got a lot of
long tenured employees.
They've come into PepsiCo young.
They retire from the company, and
then as they leave the company,
they still remain attached to the company.
And they are talking about
PepsiCo all the time.
At some point you've
got to make the break.
You know what I'm talking about.
They still think they're
part of the company,
they're running the company, right?
And so,
this book club has to be kept happy.
But I don't think you should
let them run the company.
And in many ways you've got to
make a break with the past.
Because if you don't, you're spending more
time appeasing the heritage employees.
And the heritage voices as opposed to
saying guys we don't have the time
we have to make the change.
>> Right.
>> And guess what?
it's going to be painful, but
the sooner we make the change let's do it
and the one thing I learned again I'd say
I wasn't may be a little bit
more patient than I should have.
When you know you have to make
a change and people don't come along.
You wait for little while, but
then after that a some point you've
got to say enough is enough.
Every third week there's going to be
a series of retirement parties you're out,
because if we don't do that, again the
people who have been in the company 20,
30 years pull you down.
And they create sort of environments
of saying the good old days were great.
And people start to believe that
there's still those good old days that
could exist, and they really can't.
And I think,
if I had to do it all over again,
I might have hastened
the pace of change even more.
>> Seize that opportunity to
actively shape the culture.
>> Yeah, and then say you know what,
guys I'm not going to sit here
doing workshop after workshop and
trying to convince you to come along.
I've tried, you're either in it or
you're out.
And that sort of brute
actions I didn't take.
>> One of the things that gives us
a chance to make it through this
transformational period is
that our founder loves change.
And while we can respect the past,
you must invent the future.
And our founder passed away in 1992,
but the one thing I know for
sure from being around him a little
bit and from all of the stories and
experiences is that if he were here today,
he would be changing things.
And it gives you that mandate.
You can stand in front of a group of
Walmart associates and say the only thing
that's constant at Walmart is and
the group will say back change.
And that gives you an opportunity to
say okay, let's talk about what we need
to change, why we need to change and
what this is aimed towards.
And if we don't, we're done.
It's only a matter of time.
>> Change is scary.
Change is very, very scary,
especially when you're living
the comfort of the large company.
Where you had fabulous salaries,
benefits, pension plan that was terrific.
And all of a sudden you're
going to be cast out.
>> Isn't it interesting,
it's perceived safety.
But it's actually the opposite.
This safety of a career, of a company,
the future is actually on the change
side of things not on the status quo.
>> But if you know that you have
a role in the change you embrace it.
But if you don’t know if you
have a role in the change or
because you’re sure you don’t have a role
because you don’t have the skills.
That’s a problem.
>> So communication today is different.
>> Totally.
>> I joined Facebook last week.
I've been on Instagram for a while.
What do I need to be on next?
>> Snapchat.
>> Snapchat's next.
There'll be something after that probably.
But Sam Walton was not on Instagram or
Facebook and I know I'm a little late to
the party, but there's power in it and
it's all about getting the word out on why
are we doing what we are doing and and
what is it that we're
trying to accomplish?
In giving people a voice, you know,
communication is not one directional,
it's multidirectional.
>> I'm just on Twitter and
I'm scared to death.
Because I have no idea
what's going to happen.
Look, for you kids,
you're reckless, all right.
>> [LAUGH]
>> For us, for
our CEO it's terrifying because if you
make one mistake on tweeting one word out.
They'll be millions of people who sort
of kill you in the public domain about
how dare a CEO say what they do.
I'm envious of my kids because
the stuff they tweet out,
the stuff they put on Facebook.
My God, scares me to death, but
you know what this is the great
thing about being young.
What they don't know yet
is all of that is going to follow them for
the rest of their lives.
[LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> That's the tough you know?
You and
I don't have anything to worry about.
[LAUGH]
Ted, I wanted to ask you a question.
How do you manage to be CEO of Walmart,
living in this small town where every move
that you make is tracked all the time?
>> [LAUGH] What do you mean tracked?
You mean everybody knows everybody?
Like Mayberry?
>> [LAUGH] Something like that.
But we're bigger than Mayberry, yes?
>> Yeah, we live in a cool place
that's actually changing a lot, but
it's still small and it's a bubble.
It's not like the rest of the world in
some ways and so it's really important for
us as leaders to be out and
we travel a lot, we're all over the world,
but go back to this really small
place where you can go to Walmart,
which I do,
everybody's like hey Doug how you doing?
People follow you around the store to
make sure that everything was in stock.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So
we have to be cognizant of the bubble.
And not let it cause us to be comfortable.
It's not the most competitive
market in the world.
>> That's very true.
You know when I go in market
research it's the same thing.
They set up the market for me so
I always see the perfect execution.
So now when I go to any city and they say,
we're going to the following three
streets to do marketer I go, guess what.
I'm going to decide where we're going.
And now they're terrified because
I could pick a place that's
completely off the beaten path and
I don't want to see a prepared market
I want to see the market as it exists.
>> Okay.
>> Normally for the consumer.
>> That's when we don't
tell stores we're coming.
>> Right.
>> When yesterday when I popped
into the store.
One associate once told me Doug you're
just like the Queen of England.
And I said in what way?
And they said everywhere you
go you smell fresh paint.
>> [LAUGH] That's a good one.
>> You gotta remember that, right.
>> Yeah.
>> You gotta remember that and stay real.
I think we've got time for
maybe one more subject and
the one I'd like to pick is
making a difference in the world.
So you ended up in this position,
probably growing up as a kid you knew
I'm going to be the CEO of PepsiCo.
I mean you probably knew that.
But now you find yourself here,
and you have this responsibility
in this platform really to try and make
a positive difference in the world, how do
you think about that, and how do you help
lead the board and your management team
towards making that difference and
what's that mean to you personally?
>> You know Doug, the more I deal with
this whole idea of making a difference,
sustainability, I'm convinced that unless
you feel it, unless you feel it deep down
in your heart and you really understand
it, you'll be doing good service.
That's the whole idea of sustainability.
In my case, I grew up in Madras
in India where those days and
even today I think there
wasn't much water in the city.
And we had so little water to
live on every day, that this
whole notion of water availability and
water use was a crisis for me all my life.
I didn't know a time when water was
aplenty until I came to the United States,
okay.
So water was seared into my head.
The second is we grew up eating and
drinking a certain way.
And all of a sudden I realized
that as you look around the world,
as you look around all of
the health issues around the world,
food played a very important role in
the people's health and wellness.
So, one had to worry
about that aspect too.
And then my daughter went to work for
the environmental defense fund, EDF, and
I got a whole new appreciation for all of
the environmental issues beyond water.
Whether it was the carbon footprint,
whether it was fisheries,
whether it was any issue, she would
actually show me all of the statistics,
what it was doing to the world.
Overfishing in certain coasts or
plastic in oceans.
And when you start to really
feel these issues and
think of what your kids and their kids.
You ask yourself, what is my role
as a steward of a large company?
To make a difference in the world through
this incredible platform that I have
called leader of a big company.
That could either contribute to
the issues or help alleviate the issues.
I knew that I didn't want to
contribute to the issues.
I had to start helping the issues and
to the extent that society had changed and
I was perceived to contributing
to some of the issues,
I had to make a change
to my business model.
Therein was born our notion of
performance of purpose which is,
how can we keep performing
while changing the portfolio,
while fundamentally changing
our environmental footprint.
And then third one,
which is really the one that I am really
most excited about is, what can we do for
our employees so that they can come to
work at PepsiCo feeling like PepsiCo is
a place where you cannot just
make a living, but have a life.
So that you can bring your whole self to
work, the company treats you in a fair and
equitable way, provides you
the support system to be who you are,
to allow you to be who you are.
And we embrace you completely.
And so, performance and purpose is not
a corporate social responsibility program.
It is not.
It is how we make money.
Because our belief is that if
you don't change the portfolio,
we can't keep delivering performance.
If we don't change our
environmental practices,
we won't get a license
from society to operate.
And our cost goes up because we pay for
water.
We'll end up paying more for
plastic recycling.
So we have to do that.
And if we don't get the best and
brightest in terms of people,
we won't be able to deliver performance.
So performance and purposes how we make
money, not how we spend the money we make.
Which is what corporate social
responsibility is all about.
So that's really what we are all about.
>> Very well said.
We see it the same way.
I feel the same way.
We want to open it up for questions.
Fire a difficult one to Indra
if you could to start us off.
>> The first question comes from Twitter,
it's actually to you both and
it's a classic.
What organization, and
what leader do you most admire and why?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Need time to think.
I got to be around Sam Walton a little
bit, Sam was the founder of Walmart.
He's the first person that comes to mind.
There are a lot of
positive characteristics
there that we're still
trying to live up to today.
In terms of who I admire at the moment,
rather than one person I think I
would characterize a group of people.
One of the awesome things about what
we get to do is we get to meet a lot of
leaders and what comes to mind is
that there are people out there that
are genuinely taking risk to try
to make the world a better place.
And this would be a very
logical time to play it safe.
It'd be a very logical time to try and
stay off the radar screen.
But sometimes you gotta step up there and
you gotta put some personal equity on
the line and try to change something.
And there are people that are doing that.
Some of the CEOs that live in this part of
the world are doing things like that to
try and improve the world,
and I admire that.
>> I'm going to give you two.
One is something that sounds tested and
tried.
When I became CEO, I called Steve Jobs and
I said, I'd like to spend
a little bit of time with you.
Just to sort of understand what it is to
run a company the way you have changed it.
And he graciously agreed
to spend some time with me.
And he gave me two or three hours,
I think, of his time.
And some of the lessons he
taught me about design.
How do you take something that you
truly believe in, and stick with it?
As opposed to changing your point of
view because the outside world wants
you to change your point of view.
Phenomenal lessons, that he was so
gracious to give me the time.
And that he gave me those
lessons I'll never forget.
I think the world lost
an incredible person in him.
He did tell me a few things
like don't be too nice.
When you really don't
get what you want and
you really believe it's
the right thing for the company,
it's okay to throw a temperature tantrum,
throw things around.
People will talk about it and
they'll know it's important for you.
And I think that in itself
was a valuable lesson.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> I honestly believe that.
In terms of people I admire, I tell you
the people I have really begun to admire
these days are people
who head up these NGOs.
Because they don't make much money,
in fact, they barely make ends meet,
but yet they feel so
deeply committed to a cause.
They do the research, they go visit
companies in their headquarters,
they'll do goofy things,
but you know what?
It's goofy if you look at it strictly from
the point of view of, they're bugging me.
But if you look at it through their eyes,
walk a mile in their shoes, you have to be
proud that they feel so strongly that they
want to make the world a better place.
So all of these people who run NGOs,
even though one side of me says god,
I wish they didn't have
such a big megaphone.
The other side of me is so proud of what
they do and I think we're all going to
change and become better companies
because of their leadership.
>> Who’d like to go next?
How about right here?
Hi, my name's Nadu Lawson,
I'm an MBA too here.
My question for you was, you mentioned
international growth before, and
I'd love to hear how PepsiCo and Walmart
are thinking about the African market,
specifically in the mid and long term.
What do you think you're going to have to
do differently to win the consumers there?
>> I tell you PepsiCo in Africa doesn't
have as big a footprint as we would like
to have, but I think it's
an actually wide open market in so
many ways and I'll tell you why.
The African consumer is, the economic
plight of the African consumer
is improving enormously, so
that's a very good thing.
Second, the continent is hungry for
the right supply chains,
the right products to come in.
So I think the market is
just now sort of taking off.
I wish we'd been there earlier, but
now that we are increasing our footprint
there, I think the challenge we
have is how do we go into Africa with
healthy products right off the bat.
And not start with the fun-for-you
products, start with more the good-for-you
products, the more grains, fruit and
vegetable, stuff that contributes to
the nutritional quality of the African
consumer which means, we have to setup
the agricultural supply chains, which is
really what we are working on right now.
So I think especially the sub
Sahara Africa region because in parts of
Africa like Tanzania or South Africa or
Nigeria we're in already, but the rest of
Africa I think we're working on setting
up the agriculture supply chains and
there's a lot of it available in Africa.
We think the potential is huge.
>> I'm really excited about
sub-saharan Africa and
personally was involved in the investment
that we made there a few years ago,
in what I believe is the best
management team on the continent.
The best management team in Africa
from a retail point of view.
We have various store formats where going
to end up with an important business in
Nigeria someday, in Kenya, in South
Africa, where most of the business is now
and we're today in about
12 different markets there.
Personally, I've been to five or
six different countries in the region in
the last few years and I feel an energy.
And an optimism and an opportunity that I
believe will be a very good business for
us over time.
We want to be local.
We decided not buy a 100% of
the business because we wanted
others to be able to benefit from
the business that we were growing there.
We're sourcing locally to the extent
possible, which is not that hard because
most of it's food and we are not
moving it a great distance anyway.
So I think there's an opportunity to
grow there for a long period of time and
reach a lot of people and fulfill our
purpose, which is to save people money and
help them live better.
But we're going to have to generation-skip
in some ways with technology.
You, I'm sure,
know how advanced mobile is and
how advanced some things like payment
are and some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
And so, just like the rest of the world,
we've gotta be on the front edge,
as it relates to technology,
and do it in an African way.
I'm very excited about it.
>> All right, my name's Ben,
I'm an MBA too.
First of all, thanks so much for coming.
So you talked about having
to be a bit conservative, or
the pressures to be conservative,
as the CEO of a big company.
You have to be conservative on Twitter.
You have to be conservative
with your investors.
So having to innovate, to succeed, in this
fast-changing world, how do you resist
those pressures and what can CEOs like
you do to resist those pressures?
>> I think personal
conservatism versus taking
risks with the business
are two different issues.
So, with innovation, you've got to write
the rules for our products because
very often, if you really want advantage,
you've gotta be the first mover.
So I think on the product side and
the product experience side,
we can take as many risks as we want.
When I was talking conservatism,
I was talking about
personal messages going out or messages
that we put out on behalf of the company.
We just got to be careful about
putting up personal messages.
I tell you something on innovation.
The bolder we can be, the better.
The more we can break the rules,
the better off we're going to be.
Because you know the world
is full of ideas today and
if we don't do it somebody
else is going to do it.
In fact, I'd say that little
start ups are capturing a lot
off the growth today even in our space,
even in the food and beverage space.
So, in many ways in our company,
we have to act as if we
are a bunch of little start ups.
That's what we are,
a bunch of little start ups.
So, in order to do that,
we have got to allow people to be bold,
write the rules any way they want, and
that's what they're doing in our company.
When we have $22 billion brands,
and now we've got another three or
four in the pipeline,
each of them is a little start up.
And they're not conservative at all.
Pepsi is not a conservative brand.
As an individual, I am.
I'm sure that next year's going to
be less conservative than me.
But I am a conservative person,
because I'm terrified of all of you.
[LAUGH]
>> I think the advice I would give you,
whether you're going to start a business
or you're going to join a business,
would relate to values.
And pausing for a little bit of time to
know who you are and what you stand for.
In our case, at Walmart,
we have four core values.
We respect the individual, we strive for
excellence, we serve the customer and
we act with integrity.
Those four core values resonate for
me personally, so it's been quite easy
to be part of Walmart because those are
the things that I personally believe in.
And the reason that matters,
in the context of your question is lots
of things are going to come your way.
There's going to be an emergency tomorrow,
something's going to come up, and
I'm going to have to deal with it,
or when you're in these jobs,
you're going to have to deal with it.
And we need some sort of
a foundation to stand upon.
And pausing to remember what are our
values, my personal values, and
how does my response here
relate in that context.
If you don't have that foundation,
you're going to be
moving around trying to figure out
one instance at a time what to do.
Whether it's a question
about risk-taking or
how you handle a crisis or something else.
So it sounds a little bit hokey,
I suppose, to pause and
write down or think about what
you want your end story to be.
But I think it’s valuable.
Pretend that you’re at your
retirement celebration someday.
What do you want them to say about you?
What legacy do you want to have left?
And predetermine before you start
that that’s going to be your outcome.
>> Yeah.
>> Not sure who's deciding who goes next.
>> Hi.
>> Go for it.
>> Yup, thanks for sharing.
I have a question.
So Amazon is a huge competitor,
like if you were-
>> Who is that?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Amazon.
>> Amazon, got it.
>> I mean, if both of you
could talk to Bezos right now,
what would you say to him?
>> Go on vacation.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> All right.
[APPLAUSE]
>> Jeff doesn't need any money, but
I'd be happy to pay for his vacation.
>> [LAUGH]
>> They are doing such a good job, and,
as a retailer, and somebody who grew up
serving customers, I admire the innovation
and the solutions they're bringing to
customers, and I'm challenged by it.
And part of our culture is to embrace what
competition's doing and learn from it and
try to move quickly to adopt what we
should adopt within our own company.
In some cases, that's dangerous because it
can look like following and be following,
and if you are following somebody you
are only ever going to be second best.
So you have to, at the same time,
be who you are and
innovate within the context
of who you are.
But, clearly, what they and other
e-commerce companies, mobile commerce
companies, are teaching us is that
technology can be used to solve customer
problems in a different way, and it saves
them time, it makes life simple and easy.
And we did that for
a period of time in one way.
And now we've gotta do it in new ways.
So I welcome the challenge.
I like a competition.
The one thing that I know for
sure is that customers are going to win.
And they will decide who's here and
who's not here and, thankfully for us,
we don't compete against just one company,
we compete against a lot of companies.
And what matters the most is how much
we're improving and getting better.
So I like it.
Gets me up in the morning and
I feel challenged and
I wouldn't want it any other way.
>> You said it all.
[LAUGH]
>> Thanks for coming and sharing.
My name is Erin Jung,
I'm from China and now MB 1.
So I have a question for both of you,
as more personal career development,
so one is for Doug.
Doug, you have spent all your
career life in Walmart, but
actually for now in our years,
it's not very common.
So I really want to know what drives
you to stay with one organization for
your whole life?
And then another question is for Indra.
You have tried different kind of role and
different kind of industry.
I want to know when you find your passion
and how you get this passion for it.
Thanks.
>> I think I've learned from
all the industries I've been in
because it's ranged from
when I was a consultant,
you learn everything from chemicals
to banking to high tech, healthcare.
I did everything.
So it was fantastic to learn strategy
through the eyes of a BCG because
you realize that strategy
is not industry-specific,
it's frameworks and how you think
about a business, so I learned that.
And then through my journeys
at Motorola and ABB and
then coming to PepsiCo,
just going from high tech to utilities and
power plants, again, I learned so
many different facets of business.
When in came to PepsiCo,
even though I hadn't really worked in the
consumer space, I could think differently.
And that point when I joined PepsiCo,
PepsiCo needed new thinking.
So I came in and started to shake
up status quo from day one.
And PepsiCo gave me the leeway to go
ahead and make all the changes and
suggest all the changes
that need to be made.
And I think why I've stayed in PepsiCo and
why I put down roots in PepsiCo From
the day I joined the company and
this is one part of the culture
that has not changed.
I feel like PepsiCo's my company.
It's embraced me, and now I make
sure we embrace other employees.
I feel it's my company, it's not
some public company called PepsiCo,
it's my company.
Every aspect of the company,
I feel I can change it any time I want.
I felt that way when I
was head of strategy.
I felt that way when I was CFO,
when I was president.
I feel that even also as a CEO.
When you have that sense of
ownership about the company,
why would you leave
something that you own?
And so, I put down roots and
I don't regret for a moment
the 22 years that I've been at Pepsi Co
and it's the greatest ride of my life.
Whether I was CEO or not is irrelevant.
It's been the greatest ride of my life.
>> My dad was a dentist and
dentistry's hard.
None of you are going to be dentists,
right?
That's why you're here.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> He was a dentist for
40 years and it is hard.
You get up every day.
You go to see people who
don't really want to see you.
They're there, because they need to be.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> And so, I was influenced in a big way
to try and create a career for
myself that was flexible,
because I didn't want to be trapped.
Trained for one job and have to do that
job forever, if I didn't like it, so
I went for a business degree.
I went for my MBA and
my MBA was primarily driven, so
that if I got into a situation where
I wasn't happy, I could change jobs.
I thought it would help me move but
then, I ended up working at Walmart.
And I really started just because I needed
a summer job to make money for school and
I loved it and that's why I'm still here.
I have had a blast.
I have gotten to do more
than a dozen different jobs.
I've worked across countries,
across formats.
We deal with everything from marketing to
logistics to finance to legal to Africa.
How fun is that?
So, when I'm not having any fun anymore,
I won't do this anymore, but for
more than twenty five years now,
it's been a blast.
And I've come to care about it
an awful lot and I haven't been bored.
If I was bored,
I'd do something else or if I'm working
around people I didn't like, I'd leave.
But there are lot of great
people around where I work.
>> Thank you very much for coming.
My name is Sarah Foo and
I'm a second year MBA student and
and I'm told I very lucky
got the last question.
[LAUGH] So, my question to you is, so
obviously you talk about a lot
of changes and taking risk.
But a lot of that is only going to be
measured or seen or evaluated over years.
But also today, if you look around
the world like investors or
just the market in general
is very short sided.
And then, there is that so
much noise in the market.
So, how do you balance
this short term demand for
you to deliver versus
the long term vision.
To take risk and make long term changes
that are actually good for the business?
That’s really well said.
>> I know.
>> I think you get it.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Now what do we do about it?
>> What do we do about it?
You know I’ll tell you something.
I think you got to look at the investments
you make in the company, as a portfolio.
There’s a bunch of stuff that
delivers in the short term and
that gives you the breathing room into
further to invest in the long term.
Because I don't think, especially now,
industries that are more
established unlike a startup.
I don't think you can say, look, wait for
three or five years and five years,
you'll start seeing huge results.
Nobody is going to believe you,
because we are expected to deliver,
because we established legacy companies.
So the way it is,
I look at things in Pepsi,
because I know what we need to invest in.
Constantly balancing projects
that will deliver today,
countries that will deliver today.
Which can then provide the ammunition for
us to invest in long term initiatives.
You can't have too many
long term initiatives or
too many short term initiatives.
Because you don't want to spoil
the investor with too many short
term programs.
That then don't give you the position
to invest of the long term.
So, this judicious balance is
what we worry about all the time.
And I can tell you, the only way you can
do that is if you have the support of your
board of directors.
For public companies, the board has to
completely buy into your program and
back you.
In case investors say,
we don't like the shape of your delivery.
>> If we ran these businesses for
one quarter of one year,
we would harm them greatly and
we care too much about them to do that.
But as we're articulating
that long term vision,
which in some cases may be
beyond one investment cycle.
We have to communicate clearly
what our strategy is and
be held accountable to
milestones along the way.
So it's not enough to say,
I am managing this business for
the long term get back to me in
five years, we'll see how it goes.
>> We'd like to try that.
[LAUGH]
>> So
I think as long as you are deliberate,
thoughtful, you build relationships.
And communicate,
whether it's the investment committee or
your board, you can do it.
In our case,
we have a family that owns almost
half the business, so it helps a lot.
If they believe in what you're doing,
it helps us have a long-term perspective,
not just a perspective that's
>> [CROSSTALK].
>> If you ever have the chance,
I recommend it.
>> Please join me in thanking Doug and
Indra.
[APPLAUSE]
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Thank you very much.
>> Great job, thank you.
>> Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]
