Aviad Meitar, The Author
Aviad Meitar has over 20 years of experience in strategic management, including responsibilities over both U.S. and international businesses. He set up the Pepsi bottling business in Romania and oversaw that venture from inception to its ultimate sale to PepsiCo’s 2nd largest bottler worldwide.
Following the sale of the Romanian Pepsi venture, Aviad led the acquisition of the Pepsi bottler in Bulgaria, and he is currently the Executive Chairman of this business.
Aviad enjoys sharing his experience and knowledge and is a keynote speaker at colleges and universities, such as Boston University, Ben Gurion Businss School in Beer Sheeba, Israel, The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzelya, Israel, as well as a speaker in special events such as MIT Forum on Entrepreneurship at the Recanati Business School in Tel-Aviv and “The Eisenhower Fellowship” annual event in Tel Aviv.
He wrote “An Unimaginable Journey: How Pepsi beat the odds in Romania”, a book which describes the 15+ years adventure of the Romanian Pepsi venture.
The Book
An Unimaginable Journey: How Pepsi beat the odds in Romania
An Unimaginable Journey written by Aviad Meitar is the incredible story of how a group of visionary entrepreneurs got the rights to Pepsi in Romania and built a thriving beverage company over a 15-year period.
The team encountered significant challenges from the start. Setting up a business in a remote and unknown market, just coming out of almost 50 years of communism, would have made for a large enough task. But they were faced with a much more daunting undertaking: going against Coke. It was truly a David vs. Goliath match-up. They had no experience in the beverage industry when they came into the market with three very experienced bottlers. They were mired with the old remains of the Pepsi presence during the previous regime — old logo bottles, multi-color crates — while competitors came in with a squeaky-clean image –- new bottles, crates and trucks. Their team had a very small budget, while competitors came in with deep pockets, ready to invest more than 50 times the team’s budget! But they stayed the course and made the venture a success.
There was another reason for wanting to write this book: Over the years many people took part in this venture –- investors, managers, service providers, partners and friends –- from various parts of the world. They all made a contribution and added their own interesting angles to the story. Aviad felt that he owed it to all of them a duty of telling this story.
As Aviad started thinking about how to formulate the story into a book, he realized that it was much more than a business venture. It was indeed a journey. Like a ship going on a long course, making many stops, where some people come on board while others disembark –- so was this venture.
Starting a business is one thing, making it a successful venture is another. Here is the book that reveals business insights about start-ups and business management for entrepreneurs and beyond.
