Today NLPC reached an agreement with PepsiCo Inc. regarding the company’s past pay incentives for top executives which included metrics for reaching diversity, equity and inclusion goals. In exchange for withdrawing our proposal, Pepsi pledged that no such goals or aspirations would be under consideration in the proxy statement’s section that addresses how its top officers’ compensation is boosted. The statement posted on the company’s website states:
Our 2025 compensation programs for our executive officers do not include representation
metrics.
As we have always done, we will continue to hire and promote the best talent, ensuring we
reflect the skills and perspectives needed to succeed in a competitive market. The Company
has sunset its previous aspirational representation goals.
Fox Business reported on the agreement:
Pepsi announced they will no longer factor representation metrics into their executive compensation, according to language added to their website first obtained by Fox Business…
The soda-maker had been under pressure from the activist investor group National Legal and Policy Center, which was lodging a shareholder proposal calling for the company to stop including representation metrics in executive pay…
“We commend Pepsi for taking this step in removing this critical component of DEI policies… If you don’t disincentivize leadership from DEI goals, then the policies will remain regardless,” NLPC Corporate Integrity Project (director) Paul Chesser told Fox News Digital. “We trust Pepsi will follow through and call upon other companies to similarly eliminate these pay policies for executives.”
NLPC previously cast doubt upon Pepsi’s commitment to eliminate DEI from the company’s employment and promotion policies, due to its plans to allow our proposal to be voted on at its annual meeting and its plans to oppose it in that forum. Today’s agreement removes the need for us to proceed with the proposal.
