When I was president of the company, I said, 'Okay, I can do this - piece of cake.' Then when you are the CEO, the responsibilities multiply enormously because you worry about everything.
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The one thing I have learned as a CEO is that leadership at various levels is vastly different. As you move up the organization, the requirements for leading that organization don't grow vertically; they grow exponentially.
Companies the size of PepsiCo is like running a little republic, there is no question about it. The only difference is that I don't have to worry about the media hounding me every day, on every word that I say. I have a board of directors that runs the country in the interest of the stake holders.
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If you fast-forward through the years, there was a period of time when there was too much debate inside the company about the significance of e-commerce, there were leaders who believed it would never be any bigger than the catalog business, there were leaders that believed it would never be profitable.
The question I ask myself like almost every day is: 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?' Unless I feel like I'm working on the most important problem that I can help with, then I'm not going to feel good about how I'm spending my time. And that's what this company is.
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