RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. – When women are put in
leadership roles, “brands get better and morale gets better,” Muhtar Kent,
chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, told 300 senior executives at the
Network of Executive Women (NEW) Executive Leadership Forum, July 24 here.
Gender equality — especially in sales and marketing
organizations — is “a huge enabler to repeat success,” said Kent, during a
one-on-one interview with NEW Forum designer Trudy Bourgeois, CEO and founder
of The Center for Workforce Excellence. Kent, Bourgeois said, is a “game
changer who gets that women are an asset, that women are responsible for driving
profit.”
Kent said his belief in advancing women’s leadership dates
to the mid-2000s, when he was promoted to president of Coca-Cola International,
leading all of the company’s operations outside North America.
“It dawned on me as I looked at the percentage of leadership
and young executives who were women that there was a disconnect with the people
who buy our products, who are 70 percent women. I knew I could not be
successful if this disconnect continued. I knew I had to close that gap for hard
business reasons.”
The son of a diplomat, Kent was born in New York and
followed his father around the world. “I learned from my father very early in
my life to always carry my own bag — figuratively and in real terms. That means
you are grounded in many ways. It helps me to never lose sight in business of
where the dollar changes hands. If you move from that point, you very quickly
can become arrogant, and that is the beginning of the end.”
During his tenure, Kent has established the company’s
Women’s Leadership Council, which is tasked with providing metrics on gender
equity in the company among other initiatives. “We just appointed the fourth
women director,” he noted, “but why would we be satisfied until we get to at
least half of our board being women?”
Although the number of women in executive roles “is moving
in the right direction,” Kent said he learned early on that the goal of gender
equality should be addressed as separate challenge and opportunity outside the
greater goal of diversity. “I knew if gender equality was embedded in diversity
[efforts], I wouldn’t get where I wanted to be as quickly as we wanted to be.
We needed to tackle it separately with separate metrics.
Outside the company, Kent is active in advancing economic
empowerment worldwide. “We have a responsibility to the 207 nations we serve,”
he said, “and if we are to repeat success and have a sustainable business, then
those communities have to be sustainable, from the smallest villages in the
Amazon to neighborhoods in the largest cities. What creates sustainable
communities? It’s economic empowerment of women.”
Through efforts such as providing clean water systems in
small towns and villages in Africa and Latin America to economic empowerment
initiatives in urban areas, The Coca-Cola Company is committed to empowering 5
million women by 2020.
Asked what legacy he’d like to leave, Kevin said, “To have
done something to transfer a better world to the next generation. That is the
biggest legacy you can have because it is terribly important for us who can
impact that, to have a role in that from a social, economical, political, and
environmental point of view, to leave a better world than we have inherited.
That is becoming increasingly more difficult. “
Kent said he learns a great deal from young
adults, such as his 28-year-old daughter. “If we are not connected in the
consumer business to the minds and psyche of these young people, we are going
to lose the plot. In the past our business was creating great, quality products
and brands that taste good and having a great distribution system and great
advertising that would create positive impressions. Today, you can only be
successful if you create positive consumer expressions — how people talk about
you. And the character of your company has to meet the expectations of young
people.”