Coca-Cola Co. welcomed about 100 journalists to its North Avenue headquarters today, showcasing its strategy and global reach to journalists from more than two dozen countries, including China, Portugal, Russia, Great Britain and Ukraine.
"I feel like I'm at the U.N.," said chief executive Muhtar Kent. "I'm impressed with the distance people have traveled."
Kent said the company's brands are healthy, but Coke still has lots of untapped potential as it celebrates its 125th anniversary this week.
"I want to make sure no one gets the impression that we're taking a victory lap," he said.
Coke executives touted a range of achievements, including a Facebook page with more than 26 million friends, adding them at the rate of 1 million every ten days or so. Coke placed a million new coolers in the market in 2010, with one in six of them free of hydrofluorocarbon emissions. With up to one million employees, the Coca-Cola system ranks among the four largest private employers in the world.
"We really transcend any one hometown," Kent said. "Our hometown is your hometown, whether it's Mumbai or Mombasa."
But the presentation had a distinctly Atlanta feel. At lunchtime, the out-of-town journalists piled into buses for a trip to The Varsity, which sells more Coca-Cola than any other restaurant in the world.
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