Philip A. Marineau: from sports drinks and milk to beer and colas, a PepsiCo executive teams up with the Meredith board.

• Author: Porter, Martin
• Position: Director Spotlight

The "Father of Gatorade" has been recruited to the board of Meredith Corp., a diversified media company with annual revenues approaching $900 million. Philip A. Marineau is the former Quaker Oats Co. executive who propelled its Gatorade beverage unit from an $85 million acquisition to a multibillion-dollar, globally dominant position in the sports drink industry. He is now president and CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America.

Well-known in the food and beverage industry as a savvy marketer, Marineau seems to exude self-confidence. Asked why he thought Meredith asked him to join its board, he quips, "Besides the fact that I'm a wonderful guy?" Turning serious, he says, "I bring the breadth of management experience that a good board member needs."

The 51-year-old Marineau joined PepsiCo in December 1997. He heads its $10 billion worldwide beverage division, is responsible for its U.S. and Canadian operations, and oversees its various bottling units. Marineau was apparently Pepsi-Cola Co. Chairman and CEO Craig Weatherup's first choice to succeed Brenda Barnes, PepsiCo's 43-year-old star female executive who left the company last September to spend more time with her family. It is Weatherup who admiringly called Marineau "The father of Gatorade."

Prior to his appointment at PepsiCo, Marineau spent nearly a year at Dean Foods Co., a $4 billion food processing and milk distribution company, as president, COO, and a director. During his tenure there, its stock price nearly doubled. Marineau successfully implemented marketing plans that resulted in significant revenue growth. One such initiative involved repackaging milk in novel quart, pint, and half-pint containers that resemble the gallon-sized bottles. Marineau's theory was that sales of milk would increase if packaged and sold as a beverage instead of a food product, and he was right: sales doubled where the new packaging was introduced. Marineau left Dean Foods, he says, only because Pepsico offered him a job he couldn't refuse.

Marineau spent 23 years at Quaker Oats, where he was named president in 1993. He resigned from Quaker in October 1995 after the failure of its Snapple beverage unit, which Marineau oversaw after Quaker acquired it the previous year for a whopping $1.7 billion. Before joining Quaker Oats, he earned an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and then completed a tour of duty in Viet Nam during two years as a U.S. Army officer.

Now that he's assumed...