Muhtar Kent on entrepreneurship
From Muhtar Kent at ATAA Leadership Conference · · Turk Avenue
“I am so proud that there is now another Fortune 500 CEO, you protect of Western Union who I have mentored for many years. I am so proud that we have one of the finest entrepreneurs in America in Hamdi Ulukaya, the owner and the creator of Chobani yogurt who came here without a university degree who had courage who had the foresight and now he's broke the world's largest yogurt plant in Idaho and is taking over market share from Danone and Nestle.”
On , Muhtar Kent, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Coca-Cola Company (The), spoke about entrepreneurship during Muhtar Kent at ATAA Leadership Conference on Turk Avenue.
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.