Coca Cola's Roberto Goizueta

Roberto Goizueta was the Chairman and CEO of the Coca Cola Company from 1980 until his death from lung cancer in 1997. He was born in Cuba in 1930. He got his bachelor's degree from Yale University. After finishing his bacherlor's degree he went back to Cuba, and applied to a newspaper want-add from the Coca Cola Company in 1954. He was hired and worked at the Coca Company Company until he was chosen as the CEO and Chairman of the company in 1980 when the company had a market value of $us 4.2 billion dollars. When he died in 1997, the company had a market value of $us 150 billion dollars. No other company in the world has had such a growth in 17 years - which happened while Roberto Goizueta lead it. How did he do it?

HERE ARE THE THREE THINGS HE HIMSELF SAID WERE THE KEY:

In an interview in 1991, he was asked this question by Linda O'Brien of the Nightly Business Report, and here are his answers:

* "You have been managing this company for now 10 years, how has the company changed in that time?" Linda O'Brien.
* "Well, first if I may correct your question a little bit, I would like to say I've been LEADING the company, THERE ARE VERY FEW THINGS I MANAGE, BY ENLARGE, THE ONLY THING I MANAGE IS THE ALLOCATION OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES. In 1980 we were a company which was an American company headquartered in Atlanta that had a sizable international business, today we are an international company that happens to be headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia."  "... last year we sold about 1/3 of (our sales) in this country, 2/3 internationally, in this country we hold a market share of 41% versus our main domestic competitor (Pepsi) 33%. Internationally we have 46% market share, but 5 billion people live outside of this country... consequently its obvious that the growth potential is much more outside of this country." Roberto Goizueta.
* "So how do you lead this company?" Linda O'Brien.
* "Well, you do that by doing 3 things: First of all, you have to take ultimate responsibility for the FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE of the company. Secondly, you have to take ultimate responsibility for the CHARACTER of the company. Third, you have to take ultimate responsibility for LEADERSHIP. That in a nutshell, is the job of the Chief Executive, and it's not more than that. It's rather simple if you have a good team to be the captain of, and we are very fortunate we have a terrific team at the Coca Cola Company!" Roberto Goizueta.