You might've seen the headlines or the viral tweets. There’s been a ton of noise lately about whether the company behind your favorite chips and sodas just pulled the plug on its diversity programs. If you’re asking yourself, did pepsi get rid of dei, the answer isn't a simple yes or no. It's more like a "it’s complicated" relationship status.
Honestly, the corporate world is shifting. We’re seeing a massive wave of Fortune 500 companies—from Ford and Lowe’s to Harley-Davidson—hitting the brakes on their social initiatives. PepsiCo joined that list in early 2025, but they didn't exactly set the whole department on fire. Instead, they rebranded, restructured, and basically "sunsetted" the parts that were causing the most political heat.
The Big Shift: From DEI to Inclusion for Growth
In February 2025, a memo from PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta started making the rounds. It wasn't just corporate fluff; it signaled a hard pivot. The company officially ended its previous five-year DEI strategy, which was set to wrap up anyway. But instead of just renewing it, they swapped it out for something called Inclusion for Growth.
What does that actually mean for the average person?
Basically, they’ve stopped using specific "representation goals." You know, those targets where a company says "we want 10% of our managers to be [X] by 2025." Those are gone. Critics like Robby Starbuck, who has been pressuring these companies for months, claim this as a victory against "woke" culture. PepsiCo, on the other hand, says they are just moving away from "single demographic category surveys" and focusing on talent and performance.
Goodbye Chief DEI Officer, Hello Engagement VP
One of the most visible changes was what happened at the top. Monica Bauer Mengelberg, who was the Chief Global DEI Officer, didn't leave the company, but her title sure changed. She’s now the Senior VP of Global Employee Engagement.
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- The Old Way: A dedicated executive focused specifically on diversity metrics.
- The New Way: DEI is now "embedded" into general human resources and leadership development.
It's a classic corporate move. By folding the "diversity" part into "engagement," they keep the culture-building side of things without having a target on their back for political activists. They’re still running their "A Space to Be You" program, which is their flagship for making sure people feel welcome, but the language is much softer now.
Why did Pepsi change its tune now?
It’s no coincidence that this happened right as the political climate in the U.S. shifted. With new executive orders coming out of Washington in early 2025 targeting DEI in government contracting, PepsiCo—which sells a lot of soda to the military and government facilities—had to move fast to stay compliant.
But there was also a lot of internal and shareholder pressure. A group called the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) actually withdrew a shareholder proposal after Pepsi pledged to stop using diversity metrics to determine how much money its top executives get in bonuses.
Think about that for a second. Before this change, an executive’s paycheck could literally go up or down based on whether they hit certain diversity hiring numbers. Now? Pepsi says they’re going back to "viewpoint neutrality." They want to sell soda to everyone, regardless of their politics, and they don't want their internal hiring policies to look like a political statement.
The Coca-Cola Contrast
It’s kind of wild to see how different this is from their biggest rival. While Pepsi was scaling back, Coca-Cola basically doubled down. Coke’s leadership recently said that diversity is "at the heart" of their growth strategy and they’re sticking to their goal of having 50% women in senior leadership by 2030.
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This has created a weird "cola war" for the modern age.
- Pepsi: Moving toward a "performance-first" model with less emphasis on demographics.
- Coke: Staying the course with specific, public representation targets.
What’s Actually Gone and What’s Still There?
Let’s get into the weeds because that's where the real answer to "did pepsi get rid of dei" lives. If you think they just fired everyone involved in diversity, you're wrong. But if you think nothing changed, you’re also wrong.
What’s been scrapped:
- Quotas and Targets: Those "aspirational representation goals" for Black and Hispanic managers? They’ve been sunsetted.
- Executive Pay Links: Diversity metrics no longer impact the CEO’s bonus.
- Supplier Set-Asides: They used to have very specific goals for spending money with minority-owned businesses. Now, they’ve broadened that to "small businesses" in general.
What’s still hanging around:
- Employee Resource Groups: The internal clubs for veterans, LGBTQ+ staff, and different ethnicities are still there. They just don't have the same political profile.
- Inclusion Messaging: You’ll still see the word "inclusion" everywhere. They just dropped the "E" (Equity) and the "D" (Diversity) in a lot of their public-facing documents.
- The "A Space to Be You" Initiative: This is still their "mantra" for workplace culture.
The Al Sharpton Factor and the Threat of Boycotts
Of course, you can't make a change like this without making someone angry. In April 2025, Rev. Al Sharpton got involved. He wrote a pretty stinging letter to CEO Ramon Laguarta, accusing the company of "walking away from equity" because of political pressure.
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Sharpton even threatened a full-on boycott. It put Pepsi in a tough spot. They were being squeezed from the right by people who hated "woke" policies and from the left by civil rights groups who felt betrayed.
Pepsi did the only thing a $200 billion company can do: they took a meeting. Laguarta and North America CEO Steven Williams sat down with Sharpton for over an hour at their New York headquarters. The goal was to smooth things over without backtracking on the new "Inclusion for Growth" policy. It's a tightrope walk. They want to avoid a "Bud Light moment" from either side of the aisle.
Actionable Insights for the Future
So, if you’re a business owner, an employee, or just a curious consumer, what does the PepsiCo saga tell us?
- The "DEI" brand is toxic in 2026. Companies aren't necessarily stopping their efforts to be fair, but they are desperately trying to find new words for it. "Employee engagement" and "inclusion" are the new safe bets.
- Metrics are out, culture is in. Expect fewer companies to post public "hiring quotas." Instead, they’ll focus on "broadening the pool" and "supporting all talent."
- Politics and Soda don't mix. Pepsi's shift to "viewpoint neutrality" in advertising is a big signal. They realized that in a divided country, picking a side—even on social issues—can hurt the bottom line.
If you’re watching this space, keep an eye on Pepsi’s next ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) report. The language will likely be much more focused on "business growth" and "sustainability" rather than social engineering. They haven't completely gotten rid of the ideas behind DEI, but they've definitely burned the old playbook and started a new, quieter chapter.
To stay ahead of how these changes might affect your workplace or investments, look for companies that are moving toward "skills-based hiring." This is the trend replacing the old DEI framework. It focuses on what you can do rather than where you come from, which is exactly where Pepsi is trying to land.