Muhtar Kent on leadership
From CEO Voices: Leading with Communication with guest Muhtar Kent, Former Chairman and CEO of The Coc... · · UVA Darden Podcasts
“Communication always will trump data analytics and reports every single time. So you got to really be seen outside to be able to build trust and for people to have trust in you and respect for you.”
On , Muhtar Kent, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Coca-Cola Company (The), spoke about leadership during CEO Voices: Leading with Communication with guest Muhtar Kent, Former Chairman and CEO of The Coc... on UVA Darden Podcasts.
About Muhtar Kent
At Coca-Cola's 2019 annual shareholders meeting, outgoing Chairman Muhtar Kent responded to activist Ray Rogers' allegations of human rights abuses at Coca-Cola facilities in Latin America and elsewhere by stating that "nothing could be further from the truth of those allegations" and that "there's just no ground to any of those allegations." Kent said the company sees "eye to eye with all our bottlers related to issues of adhering to the highest standards of human rights," but noted that bottlers are "independent companies run by independent leadership teams" and that "not everything can be dictated to bottlers." He said the company would continue to work with activists to "influence" and "bring matters to a better place." In a 2018 CNBC interview, Kent described the global business environment as characterized by "volatility, volatility, volatility, and more unknowns," adding that "running a global business is just getting tougher and harder" due to socio-political dynamics. He said he was a "realistic optimist" that the US-China trade dispute would be resolved "for the benefit of both countries and the world." Kent also said that while Coca-Cola is "the quintessential American brand," the company is "so local" in China, noting that its ownership includes Chinese state-owned and Chinese enterprise partners.