Hispanic Business at PepsiCo with Esperanza Teasdale


Let's talk about the professional path and You are now the vp gm of the hispanic business unit for pepsico. What was your path to get there. Yeah i am studied engineering for college. So i was math and science person in high school and my physics teacher mr adrian nouvelle who actually was so important to my life that he came to my wedding by way and kind of steered me into the space helped me with College application letters recommendation. And so i studied engineering before. You're so i've been in a manufacturing environment for awhile. Bump steel toed shoes uniform union arment. And that's really where i started my career At the same time my company was so gracious that They paid for my mba. So i went to Uconn in stamford connecticut to take classes at night and really got more exposed to concepts of business management marketing research and just really loved it and so then when i asked for a new gig they said finance or sales and unlike okay sales and sales and all i need to go into marketing because marketing guides what we're doing in sales and i think they could do a better job and so i was lucky that my General manager at the time created a job and that was that was the beginning of my marketing career. So very classically trained at unilever and then pepsi around marketing from like you know the analysts all the way through up till now you know a vp gm. Which i'm really proud and excited about and And yeah i feel like i'm in a really great role. Right can make a big impact on the careers of our of our folks drive to mercy inclusion and drive the business results faster than general market because the population is growing so quick so and There's just so many things that are benefiting from being in this role that That i'm really grateful about. But that's kind of the the journey really. It was not linear at all Did not start off wanting to and marketing that side of my brain and that analytical process orientation i think does just a market yeah i think increasing edge to a home maybe ten years ago when you made the original switch i think today it's much more analytically rigorous than it has been in the past But yeah no. That's that's phenomenal. And i've had a few folks on the show. That have transitioned from engineer to sales marketing. And it's it's funny the way you went through that transition in how you described it because a few of them have described it similarly meaning they. They went from engineering the sales and then they realized my words not yours. How bad marketing screws it up. And they need to go help marketing. Try to figure that out because it it comes down to the sales folks at some level whether their marketing is getting it right or not so. It's an interesting learning curve and A pathway that. I've heard before. So what would what drove what drove the creation of the hispanic business unit. And how are you guys thinking about like measuring success. That's a that's a big scene seemingly to me as an outsider like it seems like a big big thing like a big shift in how you're organized. Yeah this was created. I believe in twenty eighteen by out. Carrie who at the time was still pepsi. Co when of are really incredible leaders kirk. Tanner who's our ceo and My current boss. Greg lyons our cmo and they just really realize that you know the hispanic Business is untapped potential and if we have a fixed mindset about it and we're not going to capture that growth and So what's the do different because in the past. Yeah we had a multicultural team. That definitely had A role but didn't necessarily have ownership and so the do different had to be to create an organization that was dedicated to this and have the right resources. And that's what they did and And it's been pretty successful. Ever since the the key measures to the other question you had really is around. Hey can we help grow faster with hispanic consumer than the general market. Can we help build equity with this fan of consumer and And those are some key metrics we look at and so far. We've we've been We've been pretty pretty successful doing that.

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