Donald M. Kendall

Donald Mcintosh Kendall (born 1921 Sequim, Washington) is a former businessman, political adviser. He is a former CEO of Pepsi Cola (which merged with Herman Lay's Frito Lay, Inc. to become PepsiCo in 1965) and served as CEO of PepsiCo from 1971 to 1986.

He was born in Washington State in 1921. His family owned a dairy farm.

Pepsi Cola, Inc.

Kendall joined Pepsi Cola Company as a sales representative and rose through the sales ranks becoming a marketing vice president in 1956. Kendall headed up Pepsi's international operation in 1957 and became president in 1963.

In 1963, Kendall made the decision to change the name of Pepsi's diet soda from Patio Diet Cola to Diet Pepsi. In the early years of diet soft drinks, Pepsi became the first major soda manufacturer to give its diet product the same name as its flagship product.

PepsiCo

After having merged Pepsi Cola with Frito Lay in 1965, Kendall gained the top spot of chairman and CEO in 1971 and he retired in 1986.

As CEO of Pepsi, Donald Kendall was a prominent member of the U.S. sugar lobby, and took an interest in related aspects of U.S. foreign policy.^[1] In 1970 he also requested and participated in a high level meeting of Chilean businessman and publisher Augustin Edwards with high Nixon administration officials, after which President Nixon met with then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and CIA Director Richard Helms and, in the words of a 1976 New York Times article, said "that Chile was to be saved from Allende "and he didn't care much how."^[2]

Kendall had a stormy professional relationship with Joan Crawford (Crawford referred to Kendall as "Fang" until her death in 1977), who gained a seat on the board of directors of Pepsi Cola Company after the death of her husband Al Steele. Crawford was active in promoting Pepsi-Cola, traveling both nationally and internationally for events such as plant openings and new product promotions. Eventually Kendall forced her out and she resigned her position from the company's Board of Directors.

Kendall was well acquainted with Richard Nixon and was photographed with him as Vice President and with Nikita Khrushchev during Nixon's Moscow trip known for the Kitchen Debate. During the Nixon administration Pepsi Cola was always a prominent beverage at White House functions. A conversation between Kendall and Nixon in the oval office appears in the second volume of the Watergate tapes. Kendall is heard offering advice to Nixon on how to handle his difficult situation. He later told an interviewer that he was "disappointed" at the way Nixon handled Watergate. "How could you help but be?" [3]

Kendall also was familiar with George H.W. Bush.

Kendall also brought Pepsi to Russia and was awarded the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, in 2004.

Kendall oversaw the creation of the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, a sculpture park that includes gardens, trails and parks a collection of art, primarily 20th century sculpture including works by Rodin, Wynn and Calder, at PepsiCo's office in the Westchester County, N.Y. town of Purchase.

Notes

1. ^ Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (Bloomsbury Press, 2009), pp. 185-86.
2. ^ Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (Bloomsbury Press, 2009), p. 187.

3. Arthur M. Louis, The Tycoons (Simon & Schuster, 1981), p. 92

External links

• Biographical sketch of Kendall

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