Fast Company

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

How PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and chief scientist Mehmood Khan are steering their company to perform with purpose
Developing healthier snacks is just part of Nooyi, left, and Khan’s plan for PepsiCo’s future.

PepsiCo recently revealed a new global corporate agenda that emphasizes health and social accountability. That might seem like a stretch for a company best known for hawking junk food, but chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi and chief scientist Mehmood Khan say they’re committed to making their products healthier, empowering their employees, and encouraging environmental responsibility. Fast Company’s Robert Safian talked to them about their ambitious plans.

Innovation is a word that is thrown around a lot. From your perspective, what is its definition?

INDRA NOOYI: Anything that drives the top line of the company. Around the world, our categories are growing somewhere between 3% and 4%, which means that every year, if we want to maintain or gain [share] in the world, we have to grow our revenues somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3 billion—just to stay flat. And then our base erodes every year because [some of our] products die. So

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