John Sculley, a former CEO of Apple and President of Pepsi, to speak at Fairfield University | Press Releases

" The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious." - John Sculley

What: John Sculley became known as one of America's most innovative business leaders while chief executive officer of Apple and president of PepsiCo. He was recruited by Steve Jobs to Apple, where he was the first big brand marketer in Silicon Valley. At Apple, he proved to be a top strategist who transformed Apple from an $800 million company to an $8 billion company. Sculley helped Jobs launch the first Macintosh with the "1984" TV commercial and introduced to the world "Apple Desktop Publishing." His most successful hit product launch in the late 1980's was Apple's award winning design "Powerbook," enabling Apple to become the largest selling PC in the world. While at Pepsi, Sculley was behind advertising campaigns like the "Pepsi Challenge" and the "Pepsi Generation," and he helped introduce the first plastic soft drink bottle catapulting Pepsi to number one in the soda market. "I believe an entirely new middle class is taking shape and it will become the biggest definer for building billion dollar businesses," said Sculley of his Fairfield lecture, "Globalization: The Future of American Brands." "But we are now talking about a very different middle class and a very different economy. For our new middle class, Amazon is replacing Wal-Mart as our aspirational model of a store with exceptional price-value combined with superb customer convenience."

When: Wednesday, February 26 at 6 p.m. * Press interested in attending this event are asked to call (203) 254-4000, ext. 2726

Where: Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Why: Sculley, known for making visionary predictions about the future of the cyber-revolution Apple helped start, will share lessons learned from his illustrious career. "The most successful companies always offer the best service, always put the customer on top, always think about the experience that the customer has and always try to project themselves into the role of the customers," Sculley told CNBC's 'The Forbes India Show.' "The weakest companies in the long-term are the ones that ignore that and just focus on the profits, the technology or the products."

Donald E. Gibson, Ph.D., dean of Fairfield University's Charles F. Dolan School of Business, said of Sculley's upcoming talk: "There will be invaluable lessons on how to build exceptional customer experience services, how to measure customer driven business success, and how to build a consumer brand." The event is sponsored by the Marketing Club of the Dolan School of Business.

Background: Sculley has invested in and mentored many entrepreneurs. The list includes MetroPCS, HotWire, Inphonic, Buy.com, NFO Research, and NextSource. In speaking engagements worldwide, he has shared his perspectives on topics such as beyond globalization and reinvention of work, solving healthcare through innovation, and new big brand consumer health services.