Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - John Murphy: 7 Lessons from a 137 Year Old Brand

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Gita Wirjawan engages in a conversation with John Murphy, the President and CFO of The Coca-Cola Company, to delve into 7 pivotal topics in today's and tomorrow's business landscape. Furthermore, John imparts 7 fundamental messages for the younger generation based on his perspective and extensive experience guiding a multinational corporation that has operated since the late 19th century. #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #JohnMurphy ------------------------ Supplementary Readings: ⁠"How to be a Stoic" (2017)⁠ | ⁠"The Black Swan" (2010)⁠ ------------------------ Addendum: ⁠https://sgpp.me/eps154notes⁠ ------------------------ SGPP Indonesia Master of Public Policy: ⁠[e-mail] ⁠⁠https://admissions.sgpp.ac.id ⁠⁠https://wa.me/628111522504⁠ Other "Endgame" episode playlists: ⁠International Guests⁠ | ⁠Wandering Scientists⁠ | ⁠The Take⁠ Visit and subscribe: ⁠SGPP Indonesia⁠ | ⁠Visinema Pictures

There's no substitute for hard work. And I think sometimes along the way, the ability to deliver what's expected of you in the here and now, sometimes gets lost. Like your job is, as you say, sometimes is to worry. Sometimes it's to dream. Sometimes it's to motivate. Sometimes it's to provoke.

Sometimes it's to listen. Oftentimes it's to learn. Hello, I'm here today we're coming to John Murphy. He's a president and chief financial officer for Coca-Cola.

John, thank you so much for coming to our show. Pleasure to be here. Great to be back in Jakarta. Tell us how you grew up. You were born in Ireland and then you decided to become an accountant and got stuck in Indonesia

and you've ended up at a great spot in Coca-Cola. So I grew up in Ireland, small town. Yeah. Near Dublin, a capital, went to school there, went to college in Dublin, and started work in Dublin. I spent four years there as an accountant, a little bit like yourself, I think. When I was doing that role in Dublin, I got an opportunity to join the Coca-Cola company. And I had... Straight out of college.

No, I did four years in Pricewaterhouse in Dublin. Got an opportunity to join the Coca-Cola Company in 1988. I have always loved traveling. Yeah. And this job was 100% travel. And so it was the perfect job for a young single guy. Within Armin? No, globally. Oh my. So I came to Atlanta in 1988 and started traveling in the internal audit department. And it's a long story since then, a long journey, but went to Asia as part of that. And I was offered a position in Japan in the early 90s. And I really started then a much longer career in the company. And here we are. You spent time in Indonesia.

I was here in Indonesia. My first general management assignment was here in Indonesia. I came here in early 96. Okay. And worked here through the end of 99. very, very interesting period in Indonesia's history and a phenomenal time to be here and to I've got such great memories. What have you sense, you know, in terms of the difference between how you spent time in Indonesia back then and now?

I mean, in terms of how Coke would have evolved and in terms of how Indonesia would have evolved in terms of howlitude of, you know, yeah. Yeah, so coming back to Indonesia this week, I'm impressed with the development, the infrastructure development. I'm impressed with the fact that, you know, it's a stable, a stable democracy. I'm impressed with the, you know, with the hustle and bustling. Like coming to Asia, there is always this, this energy outbursts. first in the big cities. I have not on this trip traveled around the country, but I know

from talking to my colleagues that the infrastructure development has taken place over the last number of years, the way in which technology has allowed this country, like many countries, developing countries, to leapfrog. The focus on people, on talent, are elements that are are that that really strike me. And you know, on the journey that the country is on, it's not difficult to believe that in 15, 20 years time, it'll be in the top 10 economies in the world. And how would you, you know, compare that

with how Coke has, you know, evolved there since? And you see Indonesia and Coke, you know, intersecting at a point where, where you think it's going to bring about more good things for both parties? Yeah, so we've been in Indonesia since 1927, believe it or not, and have had a fantastic history here. And we think of Indonesia as been one of our key growth markets over the next 20, 30 years. And we have a great team here.

We have a bottling partner, Coquale, Pacific partners. And we are excited with the, with the, with the, with the, I think for any company coming and, and in a country like Indonesia, it's, it's, it's really fundamental to, to be, to be part of the community to be, you know, we're not here as tourists. We, we, we see our, our presence here has been forever. And, and, and therefore, there's, I think, an obligation on companies like hours to contribute. And we, as our simple purpose statement is to not only refresh the world

where we are, but to make a difference in the communities in which we operate. And we take that very seriously. And so we've got a lot of interesting initiatives underway here that I think help to help to not only support our business and our industry, but help to be supportive of the overall progress that the country is making. Talk about some of the big Ws that you've been working on, women, water, waste, well-being, all that stuff. We have an agenda that is under that umbrella of making a difference. We like to focus on areas that we believe we can impact that are close to our business, close to our industry, and important for the country. So waste, we have a set of objectives under the umbrella of World Without Waste that we're very proud to drive forward.

And we've got we've got a lot of progress to report out. And we do so each year we issue a business and sustainability report to kind of hold ourselves accountable for progress against these objectives. So in in in in in waste, you know, you know, we, we, we, we construct an agenda on around three, three areas, you know, the packaging we design, how we collect and how we partner. Um, under design, we have a, an objective to have 100% recyclable packaging everywhere in the world by 2030. Wow. Um, and that 50% of the package. of our plastic packaging comes from recycled PET by 2025. They're lofty objectives.

We've got a lot of work to do to deliver against them. Here in Indonesia, we're well on the way. I think 100% of our packaging today is recyclable. We have a very interesting joint venture with Dinopac and Kukul European partners in West Java to Amandina and West Java to deliver on the, on the recycling goals and are making tremendous progress there. So that's just one of many examples that we have underway. The partnership piece is fundamental to, to being able to, I think, scale making a difference. We were part of the Indonesia Packaging and Recycling Association. We are part of an organization that was

established under the auspices of the World Economic Forum. And we enjoy sitting around the table with other members of the public sector, the private sector, the NGO community to to forge these types of alliances that can allow all of us to ultimately make a difference. You know, we had a chat earlier about, you know, an observation that I've made with regards to how the narrative of sustainability doesn't seem to resonate to everybody on the planet. Probably about 15 to 20% of the population of the planet, whereas most others are still worried about putting food on the table. Yes. I call these guys as those coming from the developing economy. and less developed. Your presence is highly in the developing economies around the world.

You know what it takes to succeed. You know what it takes to basically find the necessary intersection between sustainability and development. How do you see these two narratives getting reconciled better through your lenses and through your presence? Yeah, I think there are always, there are always people out there that are leading to charge. Right. And you're not going to get everybody following them from day one for many of the reasons that you've outlined or that we know. And I think the role of companies like ours is to provide an example, is to provide leadership, to take seriously the business of getting things done. It's one thing to lay out a grand plan. It's one thing to have a clearly articulated policy.

But it's nothing to get things done. And I think where the private sector and where companies like ours in the private sector have bought the opportunity. And indeed, responsibility is to demonstrate that the getting things done part is what we're really good at. And so that's why I go back to the partnership piece. And I've been involved in many initiatives working with the public sector, working with NGOs. And I think what we can bring to the table is that is that no nonsense.

Okay, we've got a job to get done here, guys. Let's sit down and work out a game plan and who's going to do what and roll your sleeves up and get it done. The collection of plastic around the world is a solvable problem. Sometimes I think we like to think of it needs new technologies. It needs new solutions that need to be invented. The reality is it needs willpower. Willpower, good collaboration between public and private sector. And we see examples around the world where when that's in place, it works.

And so our job, is to continue to drive a focus on getting things done, and not shying away from the hard work that entails. Is there realism with respect to the wolves being able to attain carbon neutrality in 2050? It's a difficult question to give you a yes or no answer. I think the progress that's needed, between now and then needs to be elevated. I think the path, if you look at just draw a straight line on the path that we're on, it's difficult to see how we're going to get there.

And so I think there's a need for the various players in the room to elevate the getting stuff done piece. over the next few years. And again, I think that's where companies like ours have an important role to play. Our business and sustainability report is a good example of a transparent report card of how we're doing, what's going well, what's not. And it certainly keeps us on our toes

as we think about, okay, how do we elevate, how do we step change the progress in the next 12 months? And so I think it's a, It's going to require even greater execution by multiple players for that objective to be delivered. I'm kind of hopeful that by way of you're putting yourself in a position of leadership towards environmental friendliness. that position of leadership will rub off in a good way to the society and hopefully to the competitors too. Do you see that happening?

We work with her. It's an area where we work closely with our competitors. I don't think it's a, these are areas that we should be trying to outdo the other person or the other company. I think it's really important that as an industry, we work closely together. And we do in most parts of the world. But I think the way you show up, not just having the commitment, but demonstrating that you're ready to roll your sleeves off, get the hard work done. I think the world always needs good examples to be inspired and to want to join.

join the bandwagon. And I think companies like ours have the opportunity to provide that. I don't like to put ourselves on a pedestal to say that we're, you know, we've got this figured out. But I do like to be in the spotlight because I think that companies with our scale and with our footprint working cohesively with other partners, both. sometimes our competitors, sometimes as NGOs can actually make a difference. I'm going to just bring up this really interesting data point from a report I read, the Wood McKinsey report, right, which talks about demand for fossil in the next,

call it two to three decades, right? It's plateauing. It's not declining. It's not rising. It basically talks about how to decline for fossil, demand for fossil, coming down from the automotive. But the demand for fossil coming from aviation still rises. I don't think you can fly across the ocean on an electric plane in the next decade or two, maybe small planes, one island to another.

Then demand for petrochemicals will also rise, right? It's startling in the sense that I would have thought that, yes, we're talking about energy transition. But I just sense that there's not enough efforts towards renewabilities as to see that graph coming down in the next decade or two. Whether it's strong or right, I don't know. But that's kind of like an observation that makes me think, wow. now, what's going to help us attain carbon neutrality by 2050, if that's still going to be the case? I don't have the answer either as to, you know, that type of trend line going out. I think you take it, you take it on face value as directionally being correct.

But I think it doesn't, it does not prevent any of us today in taking measures that will help that trend line. So I so I so there, there may well be external factors. There may well be, um, drivers that will continue to present a headwind on the ability to get to, um, to, to, to, to, to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to do to do not. But it doesn't, it doesn't and should not stop any one of us from getting involved in initiatives that we know will create tailwind. against those headwinds. And I think that's really important for all of us to keep in mind. Let's talk about the next W. Water. What have you been busy with? Water is fundamental to our industry. Our industry would not exist if we did not have access to water, to lots of it in the past and in the future.

And so it's a for us, it's really important for our for our future. but it's also important for the future of mankind to to to to to to we have since 2011 we we we set a target in 20 to be water neutral to the world and set a target to do that within six years and we accomplished it within four so today we are water neutral in indonesia today we replenish twice as much water as we use as we use. Through investment in a series of watershed initiatives, we have a number of projects across the country working in partnership with the USAID to build wells, infiltration wells, to establish ponds that can capture rainwater and it can be used for agricultural purposes. We have a very strong focus in our own operations to reduce the amount of water that we use. We've reduced that by over 40% in the last seven or eight years to a number of initiatives. So it's a core part of the way we think about how to do business, both efficiently for good economic reasons, but also

for the good of society. And we're very proud, I think, of the progress that we've made around the world. And, and each year that goes by, we, we try and drill down a little bit more. Like, if we're replenishing 2x in Indonesia, well, I want to do it 2X in Java. I want to do it 2X in Sumatra. And so having that, that granular view of the world and then making sure that we're putting the right programs together to deliver against those more granular objectives is really what the name of the game is. at the moment. We have a global map of where there's the most stress in the world. We have a number of initiatives and many of these are outlined in our business and sustainability report, the progress we're making, the challenges we have. And it's an area I'm very proud of the

worker system has done and is doing. And yet the job never finishes. It's never ending. It's a good example, going back to what we were saying earlier, it's a good example, I think, of setting lofty ambition for an initiative that is fundamental to our business, being able to sustain itself over time, but also really important for society. And then, you know, rolling your sleeves up and getting the work done because that's, again, I think, a core. benefit that the private sector can bring to the table. But this water undertaking sounds like a pretty capital-intensive undertaking. It requires some investment, yes, for sure. You've got to be willing to invest. Water replenishment initiatives require some investment.

But they're not heavily. It's not heavy capital. It becomes, to my mind, it's a part of the, overall cost of doing business equation that we need to, we need to back into, into, into, into our journey. So we don't, I don't really worry about the, the, the, the capital intensive component of it. I'm more worried about making sure that we set, we set ourselves up. We have the capabilities that are needed. We have the partnerships that are needed. to deliver on the objectives that we've said.

I wasn't thinking about Coca-Cola, but I was thinking about the others who may not be able to afford this, right? That's the threshold that I think is going to weed out, you know, what should be in the picture and what shouldn't be in the picture. Yes, and I think from a, you know, if I think about a number of developing countries

where water stress is a big challenge, The solutions required there need that tripartite group, the public sector, the private sector and the various NGO bodies that are focused on this. It needs investment, for sure. And it needs innovation. Some of the solutions that are required in some of these areas, will only will only come about with an ongoing investment in new technologies to, to deliver the kind of results that we need. I mean, it's just kind of cool that you're showing proactivity from a corporate policy standpoint

in the absence of any public policy that would have mandated you to do this, right? What you've done with the recyclos and what you've done with the water and all that stuff. Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's a, you know, for us it's, it's, it's, It's a rational part of being, being able to build a business out. We've been in business for 136 years. I think our job today as, as leaders of that business, is to pass it on in really good hands to the next generation so that they can continue to take it forward for the next 136.

And so it's incumbent upon us to understand what are the drivers of that equation. And to make sure then that we're investing appropriately. But the same token, as I said, embedded in our why is making a difference. We operate in over 200 countries. We think of ourselves as being permanent residence. There's a lot of country that I've been there. I don't see. We're not tourists. We're permanent residents. And we take that seriously. And we, it's an obligation, I think, to be to be part of then societal solutions that are needed for countries to prosper over time.

The next W. Women. Yes. How do you see the role of women in Coca-Cola? Very, very important. You know, it's a, the case for the case for women in leadership, we even object to have 50,000. 50% of our leadership team to be held by women by 2030. And we're on a good path to get there. Where are you at now? We are in the 30s at the moment. Almost there.

And we're not far away. And we've got a tremendous pipeline of female talent around the world and are very invested in creating. opportunities that will allow us to deliver on our, on our, on our ambition. You know, when it's, when half the world is, is at least half the world, I think it's slightly more than half the world populated by women, when women form such a hugely important part of the decision making that allows the world to, to, to take along, it's only, I think it's only natural that they represent, they have that representation when it comes to leading

companies. You know, I've been saying there's a lot here, at least, you know, when I was in school, the smartest were usually female in class. And I take a look at studies on return on equity, return on investment within the private equity space or venture capital space, those that are run by females yield the business. The business cases, the examples out there are plentiful. And again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier. I think then it's, you know, it's, it becomes, it becomes then incumbent upon organizations to roll their sleeves up and, and take action. You don't solve big problems overnight, but you can solve them with, I think, dedicated focus with a discipline, course of action, with a desire to get there. And I think we're on a good path and look forward to seeing that path continue to get us towards that overall ambition, maybe sooner than 2030. Yeah.

Okay, here's this next W or the last one. Well-being. You know, some people see some of your products as not being very healthy. Yes. How do you tackle that myth or perception? We have a portfolio of products across the world that deliver different benefits to people in different places. is today, 30% of our portfolio is either

low calorie or no calorie. We embrace the objectives of the World Health Organization. We're not, we're not an organization that's asking for

expecting people to consume large quantities of sugary drinks. We have in place I think a lot of policies, a lot of actions to educate people on healthy living to innovate a portfolio of beverage solutions that offers choice of low and no calorie to people. we have over the last seven or eight years substantially increased the, we offer. And as I say, we have internally, we have objectives to make available those solutions in a much broader basis around the world.

So it's, yeah, it's one of those areas where it's ongoing. we have a tremendous focus on the well-being of the world that we live in. And we're very dedicated to creating that portfolio of solutions that allowed that to become reality. Is it possible in my lifetime to find a product that's going to be able to check off the box of joy and health? just about everything I consume, everything anybody consumes. Is there such an endgame? I think so. I think anything that's consumed within reason.

Okay. It's okay. It is, you know. Moderation. Moderation is, I think, a phenomenal, a phenomenally easy part of the equation to scale. I think the challenge. I think the challenge we have is it's difficult for people to moderate.

And so education, the ongoing provision of choices that facilitate that moderation, the ongoing availability of those choices are parts of the solution. I remember when I used to have to walk into a really intense meeting in my younger days, I would have at least one or two glasses of coke. It's like I get really pumped up, you know. I'll be ready for the presentation. That was sort of like my SOP, standard operating procedure. Yeah, everybody has their own, as you say, M-O to get through those moments.

Now, draw us a picture. You know, we're viewed by quite a lot of youngsters that want to be successful in running organizations and successful as entrepreneurs. You've walked a really nice line in the last 30, 40 years, right? Since the 80s until today. What are some of the stuff that you could tell the kids out here? if if if if if if if you like you as a as a as a multinational like that I would start with my father was an educator and he he always good he was he was a good educator and a great father um but one of his piece of advice to to me and to to my siblings going to there's there's no substitute for hard work. And I think sometimes along the way, the ability to deliver what's expected of you in the here and now sometimes gets lost. There's often a desire to think about what's next. What's how come, what am I going to do tomorrow? How I,

what have I done in the last? And it's, it's a, you know, a maniacal focus. on today and your ability to deliver the best that you can today is, and you accumulate that over thousands of days and it makes a big difference. So that's always one of the things, first things that comes to mind. It may not be the sexiest thing that comes to mind, but it's something that's super important. I think it's good for people to dream a little. You know, the last time I, the last time I asked them, you know, dreams don't cost anything. It's one of the one of the few luxuries in life that are free. I think it's great for people to dream.

And each one of us has our own way of dreaming. And sometimes it's with a very specific ambition. Sometimes it's a little cloudy or a little murkier. And I think it's important for people to have that as a very specific. a sort of a guiding light to help them along the way. I think building out along the way, along the journey, building out, we talked about a little bit earlier, a portfolio of experiences and skills that over time accumulate

to maybe differentiate you is really important. I don't, early on, I don't think it's, People should think them. Try stuff. If it doesn't work, that's okay. You learn something. But I really believe in developing that a diverse set of skills. In my case, I've had the great benefit of working in many different parts of the world.

You know, when you work in... That's a hell of a diverse. You know, there's no substitute for a good education and travel. learning how to operate in different cultures, taking on different roles and responsibilities, knowing that you could fail. It's pretty sobering thing, going into roles, knowing that you've been given a great opportunity, but there's no guarantee it'll work out. And so I think embracing early on that risk-reward equation is super important to develop the grit and the toughness internally that you need. to deal with the curveballs that get thrown at you. Building, the other piece I think is super important is building,

building over time networks. Most of the inflection moments in my life are as a direct result of relationships that I've, that I've developed over time. I didn't develop them necessarily to create that moment. But when I look back on those moments, it's normally been somebody who's been key to facilitating it to happen. And so you can never have a big enough network. What would you advise to the young generation in terms of what they need to do when they face a crisis or a failure? I'm sure, you know, you know, you know, not been too perfect for you.

No. What are some of the things that you did that basically made you, you know, anti-fragile? It's always easy in hindsight to provide this advice because in the moment it doesn't, you know, you don't necessarily have that wisdom. But I think being open to an environment, okay. where the risk of failure is there is the first step. And so I think it's almost conditioning yourself in advance. You know, you go into, like I came to work in a country like Indonesia, you go in knowing that something's going to go wrong.

And so being being comfortable that that is the case is, I think, really important. And when these moments happen, you actually, it brings to, it brings to the surface many of the past experience or the past moments that you've had. And therefore, it goes back to my earlier point is take advantage of operating, working in as many diverse situations as you can, because almost by osmosis, you'll learn a lot more than you appreciate. and realize. Any crisis that I've ever been involved in, you've got to have people who you can call, who you can help you, advise you. I think having building, and normally that means that you've got to have people you can trust. And so no matter what type of environment you're in, the power of building relationships and, and I think is a really important ally

when you go through moments of crisis. I think as a leader, the more senior you become in an organization, the more humility that you bring along with you, that communicates to others. that you don't have all the answers is is a phenomenal asset to have in a crisis because it allows others to open up and give you the answers that perhaps you wouldn't otherwise get. I agree.

Not easy though. Not easy. Not easy at all. And I think that's on the journey to being to being a leader at scale. you go through many stages. I don't know, I don't know from, I'd say stage one to stage nine overnight. So I think the path that you follow

goes back to my earlier point of, a path that gives you exposure to different experiences, different relationships, different bosses, different teams. They accumulate over time. And so when you get to dealing with crisis at scale, that, that, that, that, that I think those learnings along the way come into play.

But you're never, you're never ready. You're never 100% ready. And I think you always have to keep with you that, that sense of, of humility that, you know, something is going to come around the corner. that you don't have the answer to. You know, you and I went to school at a time when we were taught that perfect competition. It was the coolest thing. Now, if I meet up with kids that are at the university, they're sort of like taught with a completely different paradigm or culture.

It's a lot more cool to be a monopolist. I want to take this to your situation as a very dominant player in an industry. Talk about how you see, I mean, we kind of talked about this earlier, how you see competition as being essential as opposed to being a duopolis or being a monopolist or being a monopolist or whatever. So I'll tell you maybe an anecdote on this on this topic. One of my prior roles in my journey in the Coca-Cola company was to head up our strategy team and corporate strategy team and a number of years ago. And at the time, we, we try to establish what are the key drivers of our industry growing either in line with the local economy ahead of or below. And so we, we were able to identify those countries where the industry had developed ahead of, of the economy, which is quite a, and that's over time, which is quite a, which is quite a, a, a advantage to have if you're playing in that industry.

And one of the, the key findings is that one of the main attributes for those countries, for the industry, had grown ahead of the economy, was the strength of the competition. And so it has always stayed with me that even though on a day-to-day basis or on a quarter-to-quarter basis, the competitive intensity that you're dealing with, you would prefer to be maybe a little lower and ostensibly make your life a little bit easier. Over time, I think playing at the highest level of competition makes you better. makes you sharper. It makes you tougher. And so for me, if I was advising the kids that you refer to earlier, I would advise them to rethink their paradigm because I think you've become better too in a world where the competition is stronger.

Do you see yourself as shouldering even bigger responsibility? towards all the stakeholders by way of you're having become so big bigger than the others. I don't think it's something that we actively take on but it's implicit, I think, in our position in many countries. Our scale, our footprint is something we're very proud of.

But we understand that an obligation comes with that. And for that reason, you know, it's one of the reasons why going back to the earlier part of a conversation, we we think it's important to live through that mantra of making a difference. I'm curious as to what you think you could have done differently or what Coca-Cola could have done differently. Well, they're two very different questions. I thought they're the same. No, they're very different. You know, I think when I look at, when I look at our, our company, you always look back and reflect on, you know, things that you might have done differently. You might have done better, whether it's to do with choices you make about where you invest in the business. You know, new categories you go into, did you go in early enough? Gosh, I'd love to have maybe gone into. to, I don't know, the coffee business 20 years ago in the United States.

But we didn't. And so I think it's, it is good to reflect back on the, the choices that you make as a, as a company. And, and there's different, I think different tiers of choice. Some of them, some choices you make are pretty easy to, kind of reverse. some are not. And I think and so those that are not, the material ones, the ones

that maybe frame the overall direction that you take as a company are the ones that you look back on and wonder whether you've always done it the right way, the best way. And I think it's similarly as an individual. Like there's, we, we don't live, certainly in my experience, you don't live in a straight line. You know, life is a series of inflection moments. Mine has always been like this.

Not always going to the up to that northeast part that we always love to aspire to. But I think life is a series of inflection moments. And sometimes I think we, I look back on some of the ones, I think we, I look back on some of the one. I made some decisions that turned out to be good decisions, but I didn't appreciate at the time how important that decision was. And perhaps that's a good thing. Go back to what I said, don't overthink things at certain junctures. And so again, like everybody, you look back and you think, well, should I have, if I was in

that position, would I make the same choice? And it's not a matter of regret. I think it's a matter of learning from how you ended up on that path that you ended up on and using that when it comes to maybe those future moments that can inflect your journey. I'm going to take you to, you know, you alluded to the need to be open-minded, right? We sort of live in an era where technological disruptions are just happening. And we've seen great companies that would have been around for decades disappear because of what I think, the lack of open-mindedness.

How do you stay open-minded as a person and as an institution when you've got technological technological innovations and disrupt it's so many pre-existing paradigms. It's kind of scary. Who would have thought that Kodak was not going to be around? Who would have thought that? I mean, Coke has been around for more than 120 years, but how do we make sure that Coke is going to be around for not 100 years? I do not pretend to have the full answer to that.

But let me share a couple of thoughts. We recently had a global meeting with all of our. bottling partners. And we had, we held it in in Atlanta where our headquarters are. And as part of that meeting, our, our CEO, James talked about a famous speech that was, that our CEO in 1936 gave. His name was Robert Woodruff. Robert Woodruff was, was one of the founding fathers of the Cochola Company, as we know it today. He was involved in the company for over 50 years and was arguably the person who built the foundations for the global footprint that we have today.

And in that speech, he used an expression that I think is very relevant to the question that he talked about, the world belongs to the discontented. And so I think part of what keeps us. And I think keeps many leaders on their toes today is to stay, is to stay discontented. I think when arrogance and complacency sets in, and that doesn't happen in most cases consciously. And people don't get up in the morning and say, okay, I'm going to, I want to really crater the company. but I think I think it can set in over over time and so I think it's really important for leaders to sustain that mindset of being discontent and I think one of the ways you can do that is to stay curious yeah be be open to outside in provocations you know be open to the tough questions that you can't answer And I think when you build that into your DNA, it's not a guarantee that you're going to be around for the next 136 years.

But I think the probabilities improve. You know, I've been telling, you know, students that, you know, it's kind of cool to have somebody who becomes a chief worry officer. Yes. Whose job is to be curious and to worry about what's in our blind spot. I think it's the role that people who occupied those senior leadership positions in companies should have on the right. I think it's a very nice way to describe what part of the role of a leader is. Like I think a leader's role is multi-dimensional. Like your job is, as you say, sometimes is to worry.

Sometimes it's to dream. Sometimes it's to motivate. Sometimes it's to provoke. Sometimes it's to listen. oftentimes is to learn. because I think the way that leaders behave and operate tend to have a very, very

strong impact on how others down in an organization do as well. John, I know you've got to go, but I'm going to ask you the final question. What do you think is a sensible endgame for Coca-Cola? I like to say that we are 136, 137 years young.

right. Right. And so I think if I think about an end game I like to finish it with the word young and not old. That's a good one. Thank you so much. Thank you. Pleasure. Enjoyed it. To this place and to Indonesia. Dhrimakasi Banja. I still remember it. Thank you. Great. So you know,

that's John Murphy, President and Chief Financial Officer from Koghola. Thank you. This is endgame.