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from Marine captain to PepsiCo CEO, Reinemund attained success from the ground up
A profile of Exxon Mobil Corporation’s newest director.
This article originally appeared in the Lamp, 2007 — Number 4
“Head, heart and hands.” Steven Reinemund, retired chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Inc. and the newest director of Exxon Mobil Corporation, says those are the keys to leading a successful company.
“By using your head, I mean improving your mental horsepower, taking risks, valuing innovation and leading change,” he says. “Your heart gives you empathy for others and a sense of passion and perseverance. Hands represent the fact that at the end of the day, the work has to get done.”
Reinemund was born in New York and grew up in Miami with an older sister and a younger brother. His father immigrated to the United States from Germany in the late 1930s and became a brew master for Rheingold Beer, a popular brand in the Northeast. During World War II, he served in Army military intelligence in Europe. He died when Reinemund was six.
“My mother never had a job before my father died,” he says. “She went to work for the school system and raised the three of us. It was a tough situation for her, as it is for any single working mother.”
Lessons of leadership
Reinemund attended public schools in Miami and was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy. After graduating in 1970, he entered the Marine Corps and attained the rank of captain.
“My experience at the Naval Academy sharpened values in my life,” he says. “Military training focuses on discipline, goal-orientation and leading people to achieve objectives in a positive way. It’s not all that different in business.”
Reinemund earned an MBA at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Upon graduation, he was invited to join Marriott International Inc. by its chairman and CEO, J.W. Marriott Jr.
“Bill Marriott believed that executives need to know their business from the ground up and to understand what life is like for employees,” Reinemund says. “He put me to work at one of the fast-food restaurants the company owned at the time.”
Working his way up
Reinemund started at a low-level job, moving up to store manager and on to district and regional positions before assuming a senior post at Marriott’s corporate headquarters.
He began his career with PepsiCo in 1984 when he joined Pizza Hut Inc. He became head of Frito-Lay’s North American Snack Division in 1992 and was named to lead Frito-Lay’s worldwide operations in 1996. He became president and COO of PepsiCo in 1999, and chairman and CEO in 2001.
Reinemund is a director of Johnson & Johnson, Marriott International Inc. and American Express Company. He is a trustee of the United States Naval Academy Foundation and the Darden School of Business, where he is also a guest lecturer.
He chairs the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), which seeks to provide a link between American corporations and minority-owned businesses.
His leadership of NMSDC reflects his strong feelings about promoting diversity, one of his highest priorities while at the helm of PepsiCo.
“As a consumer products company, we recognized the need to make our organization, from the front line to the boardroom, look like the customers we serve. I think that’s a priority in any industry.”
Diversity versus inclusion
Reinemund wanted to go beyond diversity to achieve what he calls “inclusion.”
“Diversity is something you can measure,” he says. “You set numeric goals and try to meet them, and that’s important. Inclusion is something else. It means recognizing our differences and making all people feel valuable. That’s essential to helping everyone make a contribution to the business. ExxonMobil is, without a doubt, one of the leaders in that area.”
Reinemund and his wife of 33 years, Gail, make their home in Dallas. They have four children — two older sons are pursuing careers in business, while the younger son and daughter, teenage twins, attend school in the Dallas area.
To relax, Reinemund puts on his running shoes. He jogs four miles a day on weekdays and caps things off with a nine-mile run on weekends. He also likes to read, with a special interest in history, biography and the novels of best-selling author John Grisham.
Impressed by ExxonMobil
Reinemund says a trip to the construction site of an ExxonMobil LNG terminal gave him firsthand insight into the company’s commitment, at both the corporate and human levels, to meeting the world’s toughest energy challenges.
“I was certainly impressed by the complexity of the operation,” he says, “but I was especially impressed by the intellect and ability of the people working on the project.”
Although PepsiCo and ExxonMobil are in very different industries, Reinemund points out their goals are the same: to deliver the greatest value while meeting the highest standards of ethics and social responsibility.
“I have great admiration for what ExxonMobil does, both as a business and as a corporate citizen,” he says. “I’m honored and excited to be part of such a great team.”
