PepsiCo: A Global Brand Drives Talent Management in Asia

PepsiCo is a brand that needs no introduction. But I was curious, when I spoke with Alexandra Richardson, head of HR for PepsiCo Asia, how the brand was being leveraged for talent management in the region. It's a topic Alex is passionate about when I called her at the crack of dawn to reach her Friday evening in Hong Kong. Her focus, she explained, is to get the right talent in the right location, and thereby enable PepsiCo's business strategy, which is all about growth. As the company moves into emerging markets in Asia, the employer brand is being leveraged as an all-important tool to attract talent. Alex spoke to me about the importance of living up to the promise of the brand, a promise she feels PepsiCo is delivering well; and the importance of the company's diversity initiatives in Asia [PepsiCo was just named best company in Asia for women].

A trend that many conglomerates are adopting these days is one of segmenting the marketplace, explains Alex. Brand perception is effectively like marketing in that you've got to leverage its strength and live up to the promise. And in regions experiencing varying growth, such as Asia, scalability is also important – meaning that you need to prefix your strategy so that you can dial up what's key to the employee value proposition for specific markets, as needed, based on what candidates are looking for. Alex explains all this and more in our phone call earlier this month.

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related reading: Building Brands in Emerging Markets, McKinsey