Donald Kendall, who worked his way up from a bottling line to become “the man who made PepsiCo PepsiCo,” died Sept. 19 at age 99.
CEO of PepsiCo from 1963 until his retirement in 1986, Kendall was behind several of the most significant moves in the company’s history, including the merger with Frito-Lay in 1965. He engineered the “Pepsi challenge,” a long-running advertising campaign that pitted Pepsi directly against Coca-Cola in a taste test. Under his tenure, sales multiplied nearly 40 times over.
“He was relentless about growing our business, a fearless leader, and the ultimate salesman,” PepsiCo CEO and Chairman Ramon Laguarta said in a statement.
Kendall, who was a combat Navy pilot in World War II, joined Pepsi in 1947, working first on a bottling line, then a delivery truck. By 1957, he had worked his way up to head of PepsiCo’s international division. In that capacity, he engineered an opportunity to serve then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev a Pepsi during a 1959 trade show; 15 years later, Pepsi became the first American consumer product produced and sold in the Soviet Union.
He died of natural causes at home and is survived by his widow and four children.
