In July 2013 the activist investor Nelson Peltz called PepsiCo’s chair and CEO, Indra Nooyi, to tell her that his Trian Fund Management had accumulated a more than $1.3 billion stake in her company. He demanded that PepsiCo acquire Mondelēz International, the former Kraft snacks business (in which Peltz owned a $1 billion stake), and then split PepsiCo into two entities, one focused on beverages and the other on food.

A version of this article appeared in the May 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review.