Bonnie Wurzbacher

Part of the Solution

Initially trained as an educator, Bonnie Wurzbacher found that she used similar skills in her transition to business through sales, including: self-motivation, an eagerness to learn new things, a drive to meet new challenges and a love for speaking. So far, the combination has proven to be a recipe for success.

Today, Wurzbacher is senior vice president, global accounts at The Coca-Cola Company, where she is responsible for the on-going business relationships and profitable growth of the company’s U.S. - based global customers. This includes leadership of several global account teams who work with these customers and their local bottlers across dozens of countries around the world.  Most recently, she was corporate vice president & director, customer strategy where she created the company’s global customer approach and led several other strategic customer initiatives on a worldwide basis, reporting to the chief operating officer of the company.

Wurzbacher began her career with The Coca-Cola Company in 1984 as a national account executive with the Minute Maid division in Chicago where she was the first to sell Minute Maid to the company’s largest soft drink customer, McDonald’s.  During her 20-year tenure at The Coca-Cola Company, she has held various senior sales, marketing, strategy and management positions.

While Wurzbacher didn’t initially experience the challenges associated with being a woman, she began as she climbed the corporate ladder and moved into corporate headquarters’ roles. “In leadership roles, and in a corporate headquarters environment, it became more challenging. As you move up, there’s more competition for fewer spots,” she says. And there are other barriers to women’s advancement such as misperceptions and stereotypes of women, few successful role models and greater home and family responsibilities.  “There are many men who have never worked for, or even with, a women before, and that has to change before some of the cultural barriers come down.  There are plenty of women in business, but they need to advance in greater numbers into senior management roles in order to significantly impact some of these barriers.”

In spite of these barriers, Wurzbacher has continued to excel. “I also try to work as though I were working for God. I try to treat the business as if it were my own, which is a basic principle of Christian stewardship.  I am also very aware that what I do can impact other women too. How I dress, speak, carry myself, lead and interact with others influences not only me, but how some people may think of other women in leadership roles. I’ve learned that it’s really important for women to support each other. The more senior women there are, the more “women-friendly” a company will become.”

Wurzbacher also learned to address her concerns with senior leaders at the company when necessary.  She has spent a significant amount of time and energy working within the company and the industry to address barriers to women’s development and advancement. “I’ve tried to be part of solution, rather than part of the problem” she says.

Overall, Wurzbacher enjoys a fulfilling career at The Coca-Cola Company and loves to explain the large-scale benefit of businesses to the world. “My favorite thing of all about business, and Coca-Cola in particular, is that it advances the economic well-being of communities around the world,” she says. “It is the role of business to create wealth, job opportunities and products and services that elevate improve the lives of people and supports all of the other institutions God has given us. It funds our education, our hospitals, our churches, our philanthropic work, just about everything! I can’t think of anything that has a larger impact on a community than successful businesses.”