One of the most powerful CEOs visited the Quad Cities on Thursday and she has a connection to the area as well.
Augustana College Alum, Brenda Barnes ('75), was back on campus on Thursday, October 2nd, 2014. She led a lecture in front of an auditorium full of students about her success story... both business and personal.
"You hold the keys to you more than anybody does," she explained. "You now hold the keys to your life and you will make choices to guide them in a way that's best for you."
Brenda's resume includes not one, but two seats in the CEO chair. In 1996, she was the President and CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America and by 2005, she was the Chairman and CEO of the Sara Lee Corporation.
Those positions have earned her another spot. In 2005 and 2006, Barnes appeared in the Top 10 of Forbes Magazine's list - "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women."
"I've grown a lot because of hard work," she told News 8's Angie Sharp. "I think it's really driven my success in a big, big way because you only get more opportunities if what you're doing is good work."
In 2010, Brenda suffered from a stroke and was forced to resign. Four years later, the left side of her body is still paralyzed, but her drive and determination are no different than before.
"My mind - for most of the time - works okay," she laughed.
"I had to work really hard to be able to do what I'm doing right now," she added. "If you think you can do it, you're likely going to do it so working at it and being positive is better than complaining about what happened to me so I think that attitude helped me."
Brenda said she attributes her success to her liberal arts education.
"A place like Augustana teaches you how to think, teaches you how to look at many different facets of the world and use that knowledge in making decisions."
She says her Alma Mater is "near and dear to my heart" and she hopes it continues to be a vibrant place in the Quad Cities. Brenda is helping make that happen financially. She was responsible in getting the funding for the PepsiCo Center and also donated $1 million to Augustana's new Center for Student Life.
"The campus is so different from when I went here and the whole evolution of it has been really well thought through."
Brenda also says the Quad Cities is also a vibrant area with lots of potential.
"I think its health is very important to Augustana and vice versa, so I hope the people of the Quad Cities are very supportive of Augustana because it's a relationship that needs each other in a lot of ways."
She also talked about the business climate in Illinois and what needs to change.
"Illinois is unfortunately in the bottom tier of its economics. We are the highest debt level so I'm worried about Illinois and there are issues that have to be dealt with," she said. "They're not easy to solve - the pension liabilities and all that - I'm hoping the climate for Illinois becomes very conducive to businesses wanting to come to Illinois, whether it's tax policies or incentives to bring more companies back. I think that would be a very positive thing."
With it being an election year, Brenda said things will change in Illinois no matter how the races turn out.
"It'll change one way or the other. I think it's tough to get both parties involved in solving this. We can't do it one side versus the other, though. It has to be a cooperative attempt to make the right calls and build the business community up again and the state. It's a great state."
Overall, Brenda's message to students was about personal choices, treating others with respect, taking chances, and valuing different perspectives. She said all those things and more have helped her succeed.
"I was lucky, but I like to think I was good, too."