I'd Like the World to Buy a Coke

When Roberto Goizueta fled Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1960, he had just USD200 in his pocket and 100 shares of Coca-Cola stock in a New York bank. He also had a job at the Coca-Cola Co. By the time he died in 1997, the Coca-Cola chairman was worth USD1 billion and had transformed Coke from a doddering giant into one of the world's most successful and admired companies. Under his leadership, Coke's stock price jumped 3500%, the company tripled in size, and it controlled nearly half of the world's soft drink market. Just who was Roberto Goizueta? He was the chemical engineer with no marketing background who vaulted to the top of the world's greatest marketing monolith. A results-oriented taskmaster, he turned Coke upside down by declaring there would be "no sacred cows" at the tradition-bound company. Two of his biggest career movesNew Coke and Coke's purchase of Columbia Pictureswere disasters that he converted into triumphs. Unloading assets, reinventing Coke's finances, and marching into new markets around the globe, Goizueta transformed Coca-Cola into a new kind of company: the brand-marketing powerhouse. For Goizueta, the words "Coke Is It" were more than just a marketing slogan; they described a corporate strategy. Goizueta became a hero to his fellow chief executives, to Coke's stockholders, and to Coke drinkers around the world. His controversial USD81 million payday for 1991 made him one of the highest-paid chief executives ever. But, until now, little has been known about the man. I'd Like the World to Buy a Coke takes a candid look at the life and career of one of the longest-serving and highest-paid chief executives in history. Author David Greising, the Atlanta bureau chief of BusinessWeek, interviewed dozens of top executives and close friends, reviewed a trove of correspondence and corporate records, and drew from previously unpublished interviews with Goizueta and other key players to tell the Roberto Goizueta story as it's never been told before. Greising chronicles every phase in a career fraught with surprising twists and turns, from Goizueta's watershed decision to break away from his father and work for Coke, to his flight from Cuba, to his grooming for the chairman's job and the bitter battle for Coke's corner office. The book gives previously unpublished insight into Coke's conquest of eastern Europe and push for truly worldwide distribution, its controversial hiring of the Hollywood talent agency behind the "Always Coca-Cola" campaign, Goizueta's behind-the-scenes push to bring the Olympics to Atlanta, and his careful selection of his own successor, years before his sudden death from lung cancer in October 1997. "We don't get paid to be right. We get paid to produce results." Roberto Goizueta Roberto Goizueta was one of the most successful executives of all time. In 16 years under his leadership, the Coca-Cola Company's stock market value rose 3500%, from USD4 billion to USD150 billion. Sales jumped from USD6 billion to USD19 billion. When he died suddenly in late 1997, Coke controlled nearly half of the world's soft drink market. "Roberto C. Goizueta...[built] one of the greatest generators of shareholder wealth in corporate history. The New York Times "Roberto was a giant of a man, a giant of American industry and a great competitor." Roger Enrico, Chairman, PepsiCo "Perhaps no other corporate leader in modern times has so beautifully exemplified the American dream. He believed that, in America, all things are possible. He lived that dream. And because of his extraordinary leadership skills he helped thousands of others realize their dreams as well." Jimmy Carter. "Roberto C. Goizueta...left a legacy that extends far beyond Coca-Cola Co. He's the man who showed that a company could expand by narrowing its focus to soft drink sales and that a brand name could become a marketing juggernaut." The Wall Street Journal. "Roberto Goizueta set the standards for business leadership around the world and the legacy he leaves behind includes ...a company that is part of our culture with an undisputed reputation for excellence." George M. C. Fisher, CEO of Eastman Kodak Co.

DAVID GREISING is the Atlanta bureau chief of BusinessWeek magazine, and has covered Goizueta and Coca-Cola since arriving in Atlanta in early 1994. A graduate of DePauw University, he was a business columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times before joining BusinessWeek's Chicago bureau in 1989. He is also the author of Brokers, Bagmen & Moles: Fraud and Corruption in the Chicago Futures Market (Wiley).