Brenda Barnes's Best Career Move Was Quitting a Great Job
January 20 2017 - 05:59AM
Dow Jones News
By James R. Hagerty
As Brenda Barnes often noted with a wry smile, quitting a job
made her famous. It also turned out to be a brilliant career
move.
After 22 years of working for PepsiCo Inc., Ms. Barnes headed
the company's vast North American beverage operations. She seemed
destined for a CEO job. Then, in late 1997, she resigned, saying
she wanted more time with her children, who were aged 7, 8 and 10.
It wasn't a euphemism; PepsiCo had tried to keep her.
Suddenly, she was besieged with interview requests from
reporters all over the world -- including Katie Couric of the
"Today" television show -- wanting to know if her decision proved
women couldn't have it all. She replied that her personal decision
wasn't a template for other women. Later, she added that, no, women
couldn't have it all. They had to pick and choose.
Her choice was to devote more time to parenting but stay plugged
into the corporate world. By serving on half a dozen corporate
boards -- including those of Avon Products Inc., New York Times Co.
and George Lucas's film company -- she broadened her skills. "It
was like going to graduate school," she told students at Augustana
College three years ago.
That experience prepared for her return to the spotlight as
president of Sara Lee Corp. in mid-2004 and promotion to CEO of
that conglomerate in February 2005.
Her 6 1/2 -year sabbatical sent a powerful message to her
family. When Ms. Barnes suffered a career-ending stroke in 2010,
her daughter, Erin, gave up a sales job at Campbell Soup Co. to
spend a year helping her mom.
After another stroke, Ms. Barnes died Tuesday. She was 63.
Through rehabilitation, she had regained much of her mobility.
During a panel discussion sponsored by Fortune magazine, she
remembered a therapist asking her to move rubber balls from one
basket to another. Ms. Barnes began grabbing three or four balls at
a time. The therapist instructed her to move them one by one. Ms.
Barnes protested: "Well, I'm into efficiency." The therapist
replied: "No, we're into repetition."
Friends said Ms. Barnes remained upbeat and eager to mentor
young people in her final years.
Her upbringing, she said, gave her humility, an ability to
connect with people at all levels and faith that hard work would
pay off, eventually. She was born Brenda Jo Czajka (pronounced
CHAI-ka) on Nov. 11, 1953, and grew up in the blue-collar Chicago
suburb of River Grove. She, her six sisters and her parents somehow
squeezed into a two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow, after her father, a
factory worker, added four beds in the attic.
As a teenager, she worked in a flower shop, where she peppered
the owner with suggestions. She studied economics and business at
Augustana. "I had no clue what I was going to do with my life," she
said later, and liberal arts proved the perfect choice for her.
When she graduated in 1975, jobs were scarce. She worked as a
waitress and an overnight mail sorter at the U.S. Postal Service.
"I learned every ZIP Code in Illinois," she said. The experience
motivated her to complete a master's of business administration at
Loyola University.
Wilson Sporting Goods, then owned by PepsiCo, gave her a job in
logistics and distribution. She moved into marketing and impressed
her bosses with the successful launch of Wilson sport bags. She
went on to greater responsibilities at PepsiCo's snack-foods and
beverage units. As her income rose, she paid off her parents'
mortgage.
At Sara Lee, she spun off the Hanes underwear business and sold
other units to focus on food, including such brands as Jimmy Dean
sausages and Ball Park hot dogs. She admitted to making a "stupid"
error by promising Wall Street that Sara Lee would produce 12%
profit margins. "It was too precise," she said in a 2009 talk to
business students at Stanford University. "There was too much
distance to travel.... We finally said forget the 12%, we're just
going to make progress."
Ms. Barnes is survived by five sisters and her three children.
Her marriage to their father, Randall Barnes, ended in divorce.
She was proud of a Sara Lee program she called "returnships,"
temporary jobs for people who had been out of the workforce for
years, leaving a gap in their résumés. "They didn't lose their
brains," she said, but most companies wouldn't touch them.
She didn't regret the 6 1/2 -year gap in her own résumé. "I
would do it a million times over," she said.
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2017 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)
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