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Muhtar Kent Gözüyle

	Muhtar Kent Gözüyle

Tüm Yazıları ShareThis

Superb Operator, The New York Times
23.02.2008

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Superb Operator
The New York Times

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The New York Times gazetesinde yayınlanana bir yazıyı sunuyorum...

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Insider Named to Senior Post at Coca-Cola The New York Times
By MELANIE WARNERPublished: January 18, 2006

Correction Appended

In a move that signals the growing importance of foreign markets to its overall business, Coca-Cola has created a position in charge of all of the company's operations outside of North America and filled it with an executive who revived sales in Eastern Europe in the 1990's.

The appointment places the executive, Muhtar Kent, in line as a possible successor to the chairman and chief executive, E. Neville Isdell, who is 62. Mr. Kent, 53, has spent 22 of the last 27 years working at Coca-Cola and its bottlers.

With sales of Coke's flagship products sagging in the United States, the company is counting on important international markets, particularly those in developing countries, to increase sales. In countries like China, Russia and Brazil, sales of Coke's soft drinks, products increasingly shunned by some consumers in the United States, are growing.

Last year, markets overseas accounted for nearly 80 percent of Coke's total operating income and more than 70 percent of its beverage volume.

Mr. Isdell, who emerged from retirement 18 months ago to take the chief executive job, is under pressure from investors to revive Coke's revenue and awaken its share price. Last month, its archrival PepsiCo, a more diversified company with several food divisions, surged ahead of Coke in market share for the first time, though Coke has since regained a narrow lead.

In the last two years, as the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has risen by 12 percent and Pepsi's stock has surged by 29 percent, Coke's stock has fallen by 20 percent.

Meeting with investors last month, Mr. Isdell cautioned that Coke was still in the middle of a multiyear turnaround. He emphasized his efforts over the last year to create a strong leadership team, pointing out that half of the top 75 executives at the company were in new roles.

While some analysts and investors have called for bold changes at the company, Mr. Isdell has favored a detailed and disciplined following of strategy within the existing framework.

"It's a million little things every day," he said at the meeting.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Isdell called talk of a succession plan premature and said that Mr. Kent's appointment did not indicate he was being considered as a candidate.

"This is a long-term turnaround," Mr. Isdell said. "Muhtar's got a big challenge, and he's got to prove successful in this job before he's a candidate."

Other executives thought to be in line for the top job are Mary Minnick, who was promoted last March to run marketing and innovation; Donald R. Knauss, who heads North America; and Irial Finan, president of global bottling investments.

Mr. Isdell said he opted to create the international role rather than fill the empty No. 2 slot, that of chief operating officer, which has been vacant since Steven Heyer left in 2004.

Mr. Isdell called Mr. Kent a "superb operator" and said he had extensive international experience that would be valuable for the job.

Mr. Isdell and Mr. Kent worked together in Eastern Europe in the 1990's and Mr. Isdell credits Mr. Kent with pulling off a turnaround of Coke's business in the former Soviet republics.

"Right after the fall of the wall, Pepsi was outselling us in every single country behind the wall by three to one," Mr. Isdell said. "Today we're the leader in all those countries. He was the one who led that charge."

Mr. Kent first joined Coca-Cola in 1978 and most recently oversaw operations in China, Japan, Russia and the Middle East.

In 1999, Mr. Kent left Coca-Cola to run the Efes Beverage Group, the largest shareholder of the Coca-Cola franchise in Turkey. He returned to Coke last May. His new job starts Feb. 1.

As head of Coke's international operations, Mr. Kent inherits several controversies, notably in Colombia and India. Last month, the University of Michigan became the 10th American university to stop selling Coke products on campus in protest over working conditions at a Coke bottling plant in Colombia and environmental practices in India.

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