Good morning. Leadership in the digital age means being innovative, shaking things up, and taking risks, even if you’re the CEO of an iconic company that’s more than 100 years old.
James Quincey, CEO of The Coca-Cola Company joined Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen for a fireside chat on Tuesday at Adobe Summit 2025 held in Las Vegas. Quincey began working at Coca-Cola in 1996, becoming chief executive in 2017. In front of a packed audience, the two Fortune 500 CEOs discussed how Quincey began his tenure.
For his first meeting with Coca-Cola employees as the CEO, Quincey made two bold decisions: He didn’t wear a suit and the beverage he sipped wasn’t a Coke. Quincey said he was trying to send two messages. One was cultural change—basically, get with the times, he said.
Coca-Cola was “very formal, hierarchical, and stuck in our ways” during that time, he said. “We needed to break out of it.”
He continued, “You ask people what they remember, and the main thing was, ‘he wore jeans and it wasn’t a Friday,’” and he wasn’t drinking a Coke, Quincey quipped. “That was a big deal,” he said. “That was a very powerful communication for them.”
The second message was about the product. Everyone thought that Coke had to be first, Quincey explained. “You have to love Coke the most,” he said of the prevailing mindset. But if you do that, you’ll trap everyone in a product strategy where you don’t let people choose, he said. “You’re selling what you make, rather than what sells,” he noted.
He chose to make his points through what he wore and drank that day because “Everything communicates,” he said. It’s not what the CEO says, it’s what the CEO does, he told the audience.
Coca-Cola has 33 million physical outlets around the world, and sells 2.2 billion 8 oz servings of its products every single day, Quincey said. To do that, you can’t just accept the status quo when doing business, he explained. Quincey calls himself the “chief agitator for innovation” to continue to make core brands relevant. “It’s really about trying to serve unmet needs and expanding the numbers,” he said.
And “I’m the chief zombie killer,” he added. The company now has 200 brands, but five years ago, it had 400. During the pandemic, he chopped products—such as Tab and the Odwalla juice and smoothie brand—that weren’t doing well. “If it doesn’t work, it’s got to go,” he said.
Quincey’s take on personalization: “The end consumer really wants to be the center of their own story and narrative. And that’s part of what all this personalized creativity is about—engaging them in their own narrative. Digitization has done that.”
He also acknowledged that Coca-Cola recently endured backlash due to its AI-powered Christmas commercial. It doesn’t feature any real-life actors. Ads using generative AI are less expensive and quicker to produce, but the technology has difficulty with human resolution, he said.
AI is not yet at the stage where it can be used to make “all our ads because we want people in them,” Quincey said.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Trisha Gosser was promoted to CFO of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), effective immediately. Gosser has over 20 years of financial experience. Since joining Gannett in 2007, she has led teams across accounting, financial planning, data, and investor relations. Gosser most recently served as the deputy CFO. Previously, she held the role of SVP of finance and investor relations, playing a key role in the merger of Gannett Co., Inc. and New Media Investment Group, Inc. Prior to Gannett, Gosser held finance roles at Brunswick Corporation and Mitsubishi Electric, managing operations across accounting and tax.
Bruce Schuman was named CFO of Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI), workforce solutions provider, effective immediately. Most recently, Schuman served as CFO for Vacasa, a rental property management company. Before that, he was CFO of Kiavi, a lender to real estate investors. Schuman also held various senior finance leadership roles at Intel Corporation, including CFO of the company's Enterprise Data Center business and Intel Capital.
Big Deal
Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2028, more than 20% of digital workplace applications will use AI-driven personalization algorithms geared toward worker experience. Digital workers satisfied with work applications are nearly three times more likely to report being much more productive compared with those who are not satisfied, according to the firm.
“Employees are craving a seamless, personalized, and omnichannel digital experience that mirrors the ease and consistency of mainstream consumer applications,” Tori Paulman, VP Analyst at Gartner, said in a statement.
Going deeper
“Why Companies Are Cutting Jobs in 2025” is a new episode of the Wharton Business Daily podcast. Wharton Professor Matthew Bidwell offers insight into how companies use layoffs to streamline operations, particularly at the start of the year when financial reviews and restructuring occur. For example, Starbucks announced plans to cut approximately 1,000 corporate jobs, aligning with a broader trend of corporate layoffs in early 2025. Government data indicates that overall layoff levels remain historically low despite recent increases, according to Wharton.
Overheard
“You’re not sending gold to buy your Domino’s pizza.”
—Rob Haworth, a senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, told Fortune in an interview that gold isn’t as liquid as it’s often made out to be. It’s probably a stretch to say the metal is easily convertible into cash and exchangeable for other goods and services.