Wake Forest’s Steve Reinemund: Giving back in his encore career

Deacon Blog

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Today reporter Sommer Saadi at Bloomberg Businessweek introduces readers to Dean of Business Steve Reinemund.

Dean of Business Steve Reinemund

As part of the “How I Got Here” series, Reinemund talks about starting at the bottom — at Roy Rogers — and working his way up from the hourly-wage job to CEO of PepsiCo.

About becoming dean in 2008, he says: “I wanted to give back in the second half of my life. This was a way (I could) help young people figure out how to take their successes and desires and marry them into a meaningful business career.”

His “final word” will no doubt prove useful to students who are thinking more about job prospects than surf reports for spring break this week:  If you take a job just because you want to use that job to get to the next job, you’re going to be unhappy, and everyone around is going to be unhappy. There are so many factors that determine whether you’ll get the next job, you need to be in a job you enjoy with a company you respect.”

Read the full interview here.

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