Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes Discusses Career Breaks

Former Pepsi North America President Sees Life as a Series of Chapters

By Katherine Lewis, About.com Guide

See More About:

 brenda barnes
 career breaks
 return to work
 executive interviews
 job search

Sara Lee Corp. Chairman and CEO Brenda Barnes

Photo courtesy of Sara Lee

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Brenda Barnes stunned corporate America when she quit her $2 million-a-year job as president of PepsiCo North America, leaving a 22-year career at the company to
be with her three children. After 7 years at home, in 2004 Brenda Barnes joined Sara Lee Corp. as the chief operating officer and became chairman and chief
executive officer a year later. Her compensation for fiscal 2008 totals about $10.5 million.
Any working mom wondering if a career break will end her working life need only look at Brenda Barnes' journey after leaving Pepsi to become the 9th highest-
ranking female CEO in the Fortune 500. Sara Lee even launched a paid internship program, dubbedreturnships at Sara Lee, targeting professionals with a gap in
employment.

Brenda Barnes, 54, discussed her own career break in an exclusive interview:

What advice would you have for a working mom who's thinking about quitting a job to raise a family but wants a career down the road?

You need to stay engaged. You need to stay connected to what's going on in the business world, some way, some how. Stay current on your own leadership
capabilities. That's one thing I observed when I was taking my time doing my family work.

Women run this society. They're running the schools. They're running the communities. They're running charities. They're doing PTAs. They're doing all kinds of
things that keep society going. That should not be undervalued by them or anybody they're going to interview with. To the extent you can have a role in that and
demonstrate it, then you have a selling point when you're interviewing for a returnship or a full-time job somewhere.

When you're working, especially in a demanding job, how do you stay connected and contribute to those people who are running the community?

It's all tradeoffs. There might be times in your life when you can do a lot of it and there might be times in your life when you can't do any of it.

At the end of my life, I'd like to look back and say I did different things at different times but in the end it was a pretty good book.
Women should support each other in whatever chapter you happen to be in. If I'm in a work chapter now, I do value and appreciate the women who are keeping
society going. I really do. Women who are doing it and have peers that are working, they should be supportive of them too. That's something we all should keep in
mind. We'll all make different choices at different points in time and they're all good choices.

What prompted your decision to step down from PepsiCo?

Probably no different than what everybody else goes through. I loved my job. I loved my career. I loved my future. It was all great stuff, but you experience over time,
especially in the kind of job I had, that it really is all consuming, lots of travel. My oldest child when I did it was 10 years old. I came to realize after 10 years of doing
it that those years went really fast. If I didn’t spend more time now, I would not have that opportunity.

I always say that for me it was a selfish decision. It wasn't that I had trouble with the kids or was worried about them. It was really selfish that I wanted to spend more
time with them. I thought about it many times before I did it and I always changed my mind.

You served on corporate boards and taught. Was that part of a specific plan to stay engaged and then ramp back up when your kids were older?

By the way, one of the boards is the New York Times (parent of About.com). I just left that board this past April. I would love to tell you I had it all preplanned and it
was well thought out, but that was not the case. When I made the decision, I had to leave thinking I would never have an opportunity again.

That was the test for me. If that's the outcome, would I do this? I came to the conclusion, yes. I would find other things to do and be self-fulfilled or whatever. I had to
assume there was not going to be another job. It wasn't a grand plan and it actually worked out great.

What was the transition out of the workforce like for you? I know some moms who scale back feel a loss of identity or that they don't have the respect they
used to.

At first that's definitely the case. You realize if you go to a function, if you have a name badge, let's say, there's nothing under it. I'd think to myself, I'm just Brenda
Barnes. For me, over time, I transitioned to: that's what I did, that's not who I am. I still am who I am and I will do different things in life.

You have to deal with, at first, that that's not your total identity. Your job is not your total identity. I felt really a lot of freedom. I called it a chapter in life because I
filled it with a lot of different things.

What do you feel you gained from that time?

There is no question in my mind I would make the same decision 100 times over. Because what I gained was the ability to enjoy what was a very important part of my
life, which were my children. Time. Time with family, and the pleasure of it and the freedom to do different things. It's hard to describe the value, but it was fantastic.

From a professional side, I felt like I went to graduate school. I didn't know that ahead of time, but as I was doing it, it occurred to me that I was with PepsiCo for 22
years and by stepping away from it and engaging at a different level, which was at the board level, I saw different companies. I learned about corporate governance. I
learned about different industry challenges. I sat around the table in each of the boards with 10, 12 very smart people. Learned from their thought process. It really,
really helped prepare me for doing the job I have now, which is chairman and CEO of a company.
  

ndiwo, India’s leading women-oriented portal, interviews Vice President of Human Resources, PepsiCo on
Diversity & Inclusion initiative by Jobstreet India & PepsiCo

magine this: Instead of you hurrying to office in the rush hour, the office comes to you.  

No, there is no need to drop your children to the crèche any more. 

Because your boss just told you - you can schedule all your conference calls, when the kids take afternoon nap.  

Thinking of leaving work because your hubby is shifting cities? No worries. Just as you call up the movers & packers, a small
office is being set up for you in the city you are moving to!

Sounds like a dream scenario we are tempting you with? 

Well, the dream is all set to come true now - and not just in a single corporate organisation, but through the industry.  

The employers increasingly realise the value of trained human resource, especially women in India, who have to compromise
on their work for a bundle of reasons. 

Some organisations tried to change their HR policies to stick with their valuable employees through thick and thin - but the
effort was limited, up until now. 

Fortunately for the Indian women, global FMCG biggie and equal-opportunities employer PepsiCo and India's leading online
ob search portal Jobstreet, have come up with a solution.
Interview with VP, HR, PepsiCo on
t's called: The Diversity Initiative.  Diversity initiative

An effort to spread the change in HR policies industry-wide, the Diversity Initiative will not only facilitate the female workforce
of India to join back and adjust better, but also create a platform for them to search for flexi-time, part-time, home-office and
reelance opportunities - with a simple click of the mouse!

We chatted up with Pavan Bhatia, the Vice President of Human Resources at PepsiCo, to know more. Interview with CEO, Jobstreet India on
Diversity initiative

Nooyi says PepsiCo has an inclusive policy

for fair sex

Call for Diversity & Inclusion 

(Outlook Business)

PepsiCo earns spot in 40 Best Companies

for Diversity

Harvey C. Russel Inclusion Award for

Pavan Bhatia, VP – Human Resources PepsiCo
r. Bhatia, VP Human Resources, PepsiCo India shares with Winning Edge, PepsiCo's commitment to build a diverse
orkforce and create 'inclusive' culture within the company as the company launches a 'diversity and inclusion' initiative in
rtnership with JobStreet, in a bid to reach out to diverse set of potential employees.

Winning Edge: Do you think diversified workforce is a key competitive advantage?

r. Bhatia: Yes. It is a competitive advantage. Actually it's a 'given' in today's situation. It's a competitive advantage because  if
u represent your consumer within the organization you will develop better products, better services. Wherever you recruit
m, that pool is going to be diversified.  It's not only gender diversity, you  can look at diversity from age, religion or ethnicity
rspective. So there are different dimensions of diversity and therefore what is more important for organizations is to build
clusive culture.

Winning Edge: Do you have any set  policies such as- certain % of workforce should be women or certain % of employees should be within this age bracket?

r. Bhatia: No, we don't make any reservations for gender, age, religion, ethnicity etc. The policy is related to getting the best
individual. We ensure that  in our hiring process, there is no bias related to any kind of diversity. However, we do keep
rgets. There would be a target framed to increase women representation in the organization from 15% to 20 %. But
ose targets are an indication of how we are doing or building a diversified workforce. That does not necessarily mean that
ere is a quota or reservation.

Winning Edge: Is there a specific target with respect to increasing the number of women employees in the organization?

r. Bhatia: Our target is to reach 20%. But in my mind even 20% is under indexed because if you look at population
mographics there is no reason why you shouldn't have 40% or 45% women.

Winning Edge: How did the concept of 'diversified work force' take root in PepsiCo?

r. Bhatia: It started with fixing targets. And very soon we realised that it's not about fixing targets but making sure that you
e facilitating on a larger scale identification, development and hiring of women. That's how we got on to this initiative with
bStreet. What is it that we can do as a corporation that will impact beyond just the numbers increasing from 15 % to 20 %?
ow can we get the intellectual capital back? There are enough statistics that show that from graduation and post graduation to
er five years, there is 50% drop in the number of women who are working. That's why we wanted to go beyond just the
gets and numbers and get the intellectual capital back to the workforce.

Winning Edge: We see a lot of IT companies offering 'flextime', 'work from home options' to employees to retain the best talent. Do you think manufacturing
companies can adopt these policies?

r. Bhatia: It really depends on the role. Of course a shop floor job can not be done out of home. But in sales offices or
rporate offices of manufacturing companies you can easily do it. And we have implemented some of these policies.
 Winning Edge: Do you think there is a larger movement -also extending to manufacturing companies to accommodate varied needs of the employees through such
policies?

r. Bhatia: Absolutely! Most of the manufacturing companies are now re-looking at their policies to see how best they can
ovide these facilities in order to retain the best talent.

Winning Edge: How did the idea of this particular campaign with JobStreet come up?

r. Bhatia: When we were brainstorming as a team and looking at how do we make a bigger impact that's when we came up
th the idea that let’s tap the female employees who dropped out of the talent pool for family/personal reasons Once we had the
ea, we realised that what we need is a strong partner who can advertise these jobs. Because we needed a bridge..if we have
es like that how do we communicate to women who are not in the workforce. And that's how we identified JobStreet. They
ve the means of communicating with the larger population and we have the means of giving those roles by partnering with
her organizations.

Winning Edge: Is this a standalone campaign or you have some other plans as well?

r. Bhatia: This is a standalone campaign. However besides this campaign for the internal population, based on the feedback
m different sets of individuals in the company, we have looked at modifying our policies. The whole 'inclusion and diversity'
ve is based on two or three aspects. One is making sure that you have an inclusive culture and we have been doing a lot of
ork in creating that inclusive culture through training initiatives.

Winning Edge: Could you elaborate on those training initiatives?

r. Bhatia: What we have done is we have developed four modules on diverse and inclusive culture. We have finished training
all our forty senior managers. Now what we are doing is we are taking this to the organization so that it creates the first
atform of building inclusive culture. There is no point in getting diversity to the organization if you don't have the culture that
erishes this diversity. Having done that our second platform is to see how to increase the numbers, and what are the different
ograms that we can run to achieve this. Out of that, the first program is this tie up with JobStreet. The third platform is making
re that we have the policies that are flexible, which take care of employees who have different and diverse needs. These are
e three pillars.

Winning Edge: The employer brand is instrumental in attracting quality talent to the organization. Do you think this campaign would have a positive rub off on the
employee brand?

r. Bhatia: I would hope so. We need to make the company more employee friendly and hopefully we will be seen as a very
ong employer by all categories of employees especially women.

Winning Edge: Tell us about some of the innovative policies you have at PepsiCo, to accommodate employee needs.

r. Bhatia: We have a sabbatical policy whereby women or even male employees can take a leave up to one year, in case they
el the need to balance work and life. We also have policies on spouse working. In case you're getting transferred, we look
hiring your spouse in the new location or if your spouse is looking for a job we are open to hiring your spouse as long as it is
t a boss subordinate relationship. We have policies relating to flexible maternity leave policies and if you are still feeding the
by then you can do half day work or work from home. We have policy of telecommuting e.g. I'm based in Delhi but one of my
m members is actually based out of Mumbai. That's because her husband transferred to Mumbai. So we have different kinds
policies for different employee needs, at different stages of their lives.

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