PepsiCo has been one of the longest scholarship partner relationships in the history of the School. Currently, PepsiCo sponsors two scholars per year.
In 2020, they hired eight summer interns who are working remotely, and six full time employees. Since the 2017 school year, PepsiCo has hired 38 LER interns and 22 full time hires across their businesses. Interns and new hires typically go into roles in locations nationwide, across all PepsiCo businesses.
Internship hiring is very strong at LER for the PepsiCo organization, with 12 interns in 2019 and 10 in 2018. Alexandra Podeschi is one of this year's human resource interns, working virtually for the Frito-Lay sales team. Her bachelor's degree is from Oregon State University, and she had internships with Nordstrom and Nike prior to entering the program at LER.
Here is an excerpt from a past PepsiCo internship posting: Being part of the HR team at PepsiCo requires that you help create a culture, which encourages teamwork, decision making and ownership of the business results. Our full-time HR Representatives are required to play a broad HR generalist role within a manufacturing, operations or sales client group. In partnership with the lead HR Manager or Director, the HR Representative takes an active role to help support an employee base of between 400 and 1,000 associates. You will have real responsibility day one serving in a broad HR role as a functional expert, business partner, and enabler for the organization through a strategic approach that leverages your academic knowledge and personal capabilities.
We're hiring today, for PepsiCo's future leaders of tomorrow. Whether you join our Food or Beverage division, you can expect experiences that will build the leadership excellence and functional expertise needed for long-term career growth. This is achieved through the leadership and execution of HR processes which provide direct and technical support to the business. Business partnerships with senior leadership allows HR professionals to actively participate in the business and learn our ongoing challenges. This allows our HR team the flexibility and autonomy to match the right solutions, ideas, skills, people and processes to the specific needs of their businesses in ways that create measurable results. Creating valuable change in line with the business agenda defines our overall contribution to our organization goals. At PepsiCo, we reserve a spot for you at the leadership table, but it’s up to you to earn your voice and make an impact.
To see more job descriptions and learn about the PepsiCo organization, visit their careers page at: https://www.pepsicojobs.com/main.
In addition to scholarship partnership, PepsiCo regularly supports a number of LER workshops and events, including one of the annual interview workshops, the "Internship Bash," orientation panels, case studies, and internship prep workshops.
The PepsiCo LER alumni network is among our strongest, with approximately 60 LER graduates working in the organization. Seven were hired in 2019 and two more in 2018. One such graduate is Lhea Townes, MHRIR 16. She joined PepsiCo in November 2016, and in addition to her LER degree, she holds a Bachelors of Arts, Honors in Political Science and Communication. Prior to graduate school Lhea gained valuable experiences from roles in Non-profit, Sales, and Student Services. Currently, Lhea is an Associate Manager Human Resources on the SouthCentral team. Within this role, Lhea supports In-Market Operations (IMPOs) and Sales. She is a native of Illinois, and currently resides in Frisco, Texas with her husband Chad.
Patrick Walsh, MHRIR 05, is a member of the LER Alumni Board, and Senior Director, Human Resources, Talent Management & Analytics for Pepsi Beverages North America. He has over 10 years of progressive HR leadership experience across two Fortune 250 organizations, and has spearheaded recruiting for both PepsiCo and Yum! Brands since his graduation from the LER. In addition to his LER degree, he holds a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Illinois. He is currently located outside of Chicago, and is responsible for talent management along with supporting analytics workstreams for his organzation. He resides in Naperville, IL with wife, Katrina, daughter, Riley, and their labradoodle, Boo.