with Katey Howard
HR Leader of Tropicana Brands Group
Rob Blackburn, Head of MacGregor Black’s Food & Drink Practice, had the pleasure of sitting down with Katey Howard, HR Leader at Tropicana Brands Group, to uncover some exclusive insights behind her remarkable career.
From her unexpected start in sports psychology to leading transformative HR strategies in global organizations like PepsiCo and Tropicana Brands Group, Katey’s success story is one of curiosity, resilience, and bold decision-making.
Katey is fascinated by discovering the key drivers behind top industry performers and shared that uncovering these details led her to study psychology and initially consider a career as a sports psychologist.
However, a requirement for hands-on experience during her Master’s degree steered her into coaching, recruitment, and training, where she quickly discovered her true calling.
“My current career isn’t something I grew up dreaming about. I suppose what I’ve always tried to do is follow things that I’m interested in and enjoy. I’ve always wanted to pursue a career in something I know I’m getting personal fulfillment and satisfaction from. Teams, whether that’s business or sport, how they’re pieced together, and how they collaborate to drive performance and success? That’s something that really gets me going.”
Katey’s career exemplifies how embracing change, taking risks, and staying authentic can have an extraordinary impact. In this exclusive interview, she opens up about the pivotal moments, challenges, and life lessons that shaped her journey, but most importantly, supports the legacy she’s trying to build at Tropicana Brands Group.
Thriving under pressure
Katey’s first big leap came when she joined Barclays’ graduate leadership program. It was there that she faced an early defining, and career-shaping, moment.
“I found myself in Madrid, managing the integration of two big banks—in Spanish. I had no choice but to get up to speed, fast. It taught me not to fear risks. It certainly accelerated what I thought was a decent grasp of the Spanish language.”
That willingness to tackle what looked like the biggest mountains became a hallmark of Katey’s career. Over the years, she’s pivoted from banking to media at Getty Images and then to food and beverage with PepsiCo in 2010. Each transition came with its own valuable lessons. She shared her top three with us:
- Follow what excites you: “I’ve always chosen roles that align with my true interests, in areas I know I can make a real impact.”
- Embrace the learning curve: “You don’t have to know everything from the start—it’s about trusting the process and accepting you’re going to learn more if you approach it with that mindset that nobody is ever the finished article.”
- Value-driven decisions matter: “Leaving banking wasn’t just about the industry per se—but it was a situation where I prioritized my personal values for the benefit of my professional development.”
Taking the leap: From Banking to Food and Beverage
Katey spent 11 successful years with PepsiCo, leading HR across Europe and the Middle East. How did that transition from banking to food and beverage go?
“It’s exciting, but totally different. In banking, there are a number of necessary personal financial matters at stake. Mortgages, loans, and credit cards. People approach that with a very different emotional mindset to the products I’m now thinking about.”
“Food & Beverage is a sector I love because it is so immediate and you can really see the impact. You can see quite quickly if the work you’re doing is working well or not.”
When asked what it takes to lead successfully in such a fast-paced and unpredictable sector, Katey shared some very clear advice:
- Agility: “When you’re in a fast-changing environment, you need to be able to adapt quickly and embrace those new opportunities. Proactivity is key, for yourself and for your role.”
- Strategic balance: “I see this a lot in businesses. When things get tough, people can understandably become ‘tunnel vision’ in their approach and concentrate only on what’s in front of them. For leaders to navigate through a category like food and beverage, where there’s an awful lot of change, you have to be able to be bold in your longer-term strategic view and factor that bigger picture, not just the shorter-term pressures.”
- Collaboration: “It’s okay not to know everything, as long as you have a collaborative environment around you. Changing roles invariably means you’re going to find yourself in unfamiliar situations. Approaching that with a collaborative, team mentality means you can be comfortable in admitting you need support.”
Katey’s approach to leadership has grown significantly throughout her career.
“When I started out, I felt I had something to prove. I probably got wrapped up in my own agenda, but now, I’m very clear about how I can operate within a team that means we’re greater than the sum of our parts. That’s going to have the right impact on the business.”
Her leadership style is deeply rooted in authenticity.
“I’m not hierarchically driven or power-driven. I value being approachable and open, which helps build trust among the team.”
Embedding innovation at Tropicana
Katey firmly believes that creativity and innovation thrives in more tight-knit structures.
“Tropicana is a small team when compared to the global structures required at an operation like PepsiCo. So, if I’m trying to deliver a people-led agenda that’s going to be effective and have a positive impact on the business, as well as help us achieve our business strategy, I’ve got to be really creative and resourceful about how I do that.”
Katey’s top tips for fostering innovation in lean environments include leveraging external insights, building a learning culture, and simplifying complexity. She explains:
“We’ve empowered people to become much more externally focused. We encourage people to come and chat to the team to tell us their views about what’s going on in the markets that we operate in. Those alternative views help that big-picture thinking and strategic approach that I think is needed.”
Katey’s legacy: What comes next?
Reflecting on her time at Tropicana Brands Group, a relatively new company only founded in 2022, Katey outlines how she wants to help lay the foundations for the company’s future success.
“The work we’ve done over the last year has really started to put in place a solid foundation of what we’re going to be in future.”
Her contributions, from improving feedback loops to shaping the company’s agenda, will serve as a legacy that continues to support the company long after her time there.
She returned to themes discussed earlier in our chat. Openness, transparency and vulnerability, to her, are positive traits: