by Jenny Danzi
In times when the world needs business-minded people with social empathy — and socially-minded people benefit from business skills — a new leadership-development program announced by PepsiCo makes all kinds of sense.
pepsicorps is a month-long international business trip with a difference. Teams of seven to eight associates drawn from across PepsiCo business units, functions and company locations all over the world will partner with NGOs to work on projects related to one of three areas – Clean Water, Nutrition & Fitness, and Sustainable Agriculture.
Participants will draw on skills learned in business contexts (e.g., financial planning, marketing and communications, supply-chain and operations, engineering, design) to help the host community. In turn, by living and working within the communities they’re helping, they will become more attuned to on-the-ground realities and develop deep insights into the connections between business and social needs.
pepsicorps is about more than volunteering; it speaks to the responsibilities of businesses to the communities and the larger world in which they are embedded. This theme of prospering at the intersection of what’s good for business and what’s good for society derives from PepsiCo’s mission – Performance With Purpose.
By knitting together the company’s commitments to human, environmental and talent sustainability, pepsicorps helps associates live the company’s mission. It also exemplifies the company’s efforts to engage and retain great talent. And it speaks to people looking to work for a business that is keen to make a real difference by reshaping the world.
PepsiCo already has highly admired leadership training programs. The new pepsicorps program adds yet another dimension to PepsiCo’s leadership development efforts.
A mere four days after the launch, the program already has received its first application (from South Africa), with many other associates intending to apply soon (according to a poll on the company’s internal website).
The final candidates for the first trip will be announced on July 28th 2011, the first anniversary of the UN declaration of access to clean water as a human right.
The first pepsicorps team will head for Ghana in mid-October 2011 to work on a project related to improving community access to clean and safe water.
It’s exciting to be part of a company that is at the leading edge of defining business-as-unusual; and inspiring to be part of culture that believes businesses succeed with their hearts as much as their heads.
