Who Founded PepsiCo?

Caleb Bradham created "Brad's Drink" at his New Bern pharmacy in 1898, renamed it Pepsi-Cola and incorporated the Pepsi-Cola Company in 1902. He built a regional bottler franchise network, but sugar price swings after World War I bankrupted the company in 1923.

Caleb Bradham was born in 1867. Education: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Caleb Davis Bradham was born on May 27, 1867 and died on February 19, 1934. He is remembered as the pharmacist who invented Pepsi.

Donald M. Kendall led Pepsi-Cola and engineered its 1965 merger with Frito-Lay to form PepsiCo, which he ran as CEO until 1986. He famously handed Nikita Khrushchev a Pepsi at the 1959 Moscow exhibition and in 1972 negotiated Pepsi's entry into the Soviet Union.

Donald M. Kendall was born in 1921 in Sequim. Education: Mercy University.

Donald McIntosh Kendall was born on March 16, 1921 and died on September 19, 2020, aged 99. Besides his business career he was a political adviser. He was chief executive of PepsiCo from 1971 to 1986.

Herman W. Lay (1909-1982) started his career as a snack food salesman. In 1932, he opened a snack food operation in Nashville, Tennessee, eventually purchasing the manufacturer and renaming it H.W. Lay & Company. In 1961, he orchestrated the merger of his company with the Frito Company to form Frito-Lay. Four years later, Frito-Lay merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company to form PepsiCo, where Lay served as chairman of the board.

Education: Furman University.

Herman Warden Lay was born on March 6, 1909 and died on December 6, 1982. His H.W. Lay Co. gave its name to Lay's potato chips and is now part of Frito-Lay, a PepsiCo subsidiary. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).