PepsiCo Foods Deputy General Counsel Adrienne Mosley entered 2025 with a dizzying number of projects on her agenda.
Mosley started the year by leading the company’s $1.2 billion acquisition of the Mexican-American foods company Siete Foods. She guided the legal components of the rebranding and reformation of PepsiCo’s Lay’s and Tostitos brands. She played a leading role in the transformation of the company’s North America legal department in the wake of the company combining its North America food and beverage operations. And she supported the overhaul of the law department’s adoption of digital technologies and process optimization.
In March, corporate executives promoted Mosley to general counsel of PepsiCo Foods.
“Adrienne stepped into the GC role amid a perfect storm — a major restructure of both the law department and the business, a new executive team and a challenging business environment,” said Phillips Murrah director Leanne Oliver, who is the former PepsiCo Foods GC. “Adrienne provided the calm during the storm — effectuating a seamless transition while maintaining the same high level of legal support and continuing to lead and support her team.”
“Adrienne brings exceptional judgment and a strong business mindset to every issue,” Oliver said. “She builds trusted relationships quickly, leads with clarity and has a unique ability to adapt to new challenges without losing focus on what matters most to the business.”
Citing Mosley’s extraordinary achievements, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Mosley as the 2025 DFW General Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department (21 attorneys or more). Mosley and other DFW Corporate Counsel Award finalists and winners will be celebrated on Jan. 29.
“Since joining PepsiCo more than two decades ago, Adrienne has been a catalyst for transformative change,” said PepsiCo Legal Director Candace Uduebor, who nominated Mosley for the award. “Adrienne is an impressive exemplar of legal agility. She has provided strategic counsel on everything from antitrust and cybersecurity to ESG, employment law and global roles, consistently welcoming new challenges with confidence and determination.”
“Adrienne’s unwavering commitment to excellence, steadfast ethical standards and dedication to empowering others have made a lasting impact on every organization and community she has served,” Uduebor said. “Her ability to balance legal rigor with business agility makes her an indispensable advisor and a role model for aspiring leaders. Adrienne not only stands out as a deserving candidate for General Counsel of the Year. She embodies the very highest ideals of the profession.”
Jenny Martinez, managing partner of the Dallas office of Munck Wilson, said PepsiCo executives trust Mosley “because she is practical, thoughtful, and she has a deep understanding of the business.”
“She brings clarity to complex issues, remains calm under pressure and leads with sound judgment and integrity,” Martinez said. “She is the kind of general counsel executives want in the room when the stakes are high — because she not only understands the law, but also understands people, priorities and outcomes.”
“Adrienne’s success has never changed who she is,” she said. “She leads with heart as much as with intellect, and that combination is what makes her not only an exceptional lawyer and general counsel, but a truly remarkable person.”
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Adrienne Mosley discusses the traits she seeks in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with her and more.
Mosley said her new role as GC requires her to provide “intentional support” for her work family.
“I now have greater opportunity to help drive the business growth strategy for the company as part of the senior business team,” said Mosley, who joined PepsiCo in 2005 as a senior counsel for employment law. “Further, my new job is more focused on external industry partnerships and representing PepsiCo in various external trade association forums.”
“Maintaining team morale and experience in the midst of significant internal organizational changes and increasing workload” have been the biggest challenges since taking over as GC, Mosley told The Lawbook.
“The ever-changing regulatory environment in the food and beverage industry also has provided a challenge for our teams and our leaders,” she said.
Oliver (pictured right with Mosley) and Uduebor said Mosley is an inspiration to everyone in her life.
“Adrienne Mosley’s remarkable journey from the small town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, to the highest echelons of the legal profession is a testament to her resilience, vision and unwavering commitment to principled leadership,” Uduebor said. “Her more than 25-year career, marked by an unyielding pursuit of excellence, has shaped not only the trajectory of PepsiCo but also set new standards across the legal industry.”
“Adrienne’s story is one of grit, determination and purpose-driven success,” she said. “Throughout her career, she has combined business acumen with legal expertise, emerging as a trusted advisor in highly regulated industries and redefining what it means to be an outstanding general counsel.”
Adrienne Brown Mosley was born and raised in Vicksburg, only a few miles from the Mississippi River.
In a 2023 interview with The Lawbook, she said she grew up in a family that was “big on food and cooking,” which she described as “a mix of Southern cultures and cuisine — traditional slavery-inspired Mississippi soul food merged with Louisiana creole cooking.”
Her mother, Bettye Smith Brown, was a teacher’s assistant for the Vicksburg Warren School District and later worked for many years for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, managing loan assistance programs for farmers. Her father, Herman R. Brown Sr., was an Army veteran who spent many years as a bricklayer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Neither had a college degree, but both were rich in intellect and wisdom,” Mosley said. “Both of my parents were amazing cooks. My maternal grandfather was a treasured cook at deer hunting camps during his retired years, and my paternal grandmother was a cook at a fine dining restaurant in Vicksburg that would not serve her own family due to Jim Crow segregation.”
Growing up in a low-income family, Mosley said the family’s food was often grown in their backyard.
“At my grandmother’s house, the pigs were pets on Monday and bacon by Wednesday morning,” she said.
Mosley told The Lawbook in 2023 that Mississippi’s “unfortunate and complicated history played a significant role in her focus and attention to diversity and fairness,” she said.
“I understood the miracle that voting rights were as I was well educated through documentation of my grandfather’s poll tax receipt, which I have proudly displayed in my home today,” she said.
Mosley said her dad told her stories about “the constitutional law questions posed to him at the time of his voter registration,” which he answered correctly.
A major influence in Mosley’s life was her uncle, Charles Smith, who left Mississippi as a young adult and became a successful executive at JP Morgan in Chicago. He flew from Chicago to Vicksburg to rent a car for Mosley and her sister to take their driver’s license tests. He flew to her sister’s nursing school graduation at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi, on one day and then flew the next day to Philadelphia to see Mosley graduate from law school.
“He helped broaden my thinking to the corporate space and worked to build me into a great debater, consistently engaging me on a topic and advocating the opposite point of view to help me build my analytical and communication skills,” she said. “He was an amazing champion for us.”
Mosley said her college experience at Yale University was “amazing, getting the opportunity to confirm some Southern myths and debunk many for my fellow classmates.”
“In addition to learning from great professors and guest presenters, my cultural and religious awareness grew exponentially as my three freshman roommates were an atheist woman from Massachusetts, a Jewish woman from Massachusetts and a recently migrated Korean American Christian,” she said. “In nightly conversations in our common room, we gave each other a safe space to talk about what we believed and why — with no judgments. This time was as valuable as any classroom learning.”
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a law degree, Mosley clerked for U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. for the District of Maryland, who later performed the wedding ceremony for Mosley and her husband, Damon. Mosley spent five years practicing employment law at Morgan Lewis in Washington, D.C., before joining the legal department at PepsiCo 21 years ago, where she thrived and was rewarded with promotion after promotion.
“Adrienne consistently rises to whatever challenge is put in front of her,” Martinez said. “Early in her career, she developed deep expertise in employment law, but she never allowed herself to be defined by a single discipline. Rather than remaining in a narrow lane, she continued to take on broader and more complex leadership roles across PepsiCo, including enterprise litigation, regulatory strategy and ultimately serving as general counsel for PepsiCo Foods U.S.”
“In those roles, Adrienne has become a true business partner to senior leadership, seamlessly integrating legal risk, regulatory realities, operational needs and long-term strategy to help leaders make confident, informed decisions,” she said.
In nominating Mosley for the award, Uduebor said that Mosley, without prior experience in privacy law, embraced an opportunity to lead the PepsiCo Global IT Legal Department with “determination and agility.”
“Eager to excel in this new domain, Adrienne proactively earned her Certified Information Privacy Manager and Certified Information Privacy Professional certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals — unmistakable evidence of her dedication to mastering new areas of expertise and continuously evolving to meet the demands of a dynamic legal landscape,” Uduebor said.
Kirkland & Ellis partner Erin Nealy Cox said Mosley is effective as a GC because she “cares deeply about PepsiCo as an organization.”
“She knows every aspect of the business given her long tenure there, and this serves her well on the front lines as the top advisor,” Cox said. “Stepping into the [GC] role has been seamless as PepsiCo Foods faces challenges on numerous fronts with public discourse about product offerings in the snacks category and the issues associated with a global organization the size of PepsiCo.”
Mosley said one of her biggest and exciting challenges the past year or so was PepsiCo’s decision to combine its food and beverage divisions in North America.
“To mirror the new business structure, our law department combined its foods and beverages legal teams, giving several members leadership opportunities over newly consolidated teams,” she said. “This change gave me the opportunity to participate deeply in org design and career conversations. I assumed responsibility for a new team, with many team members based outside of Texas. It’s been a great opportunity to learn more deeply about our entire North America business and to support the business growth goals of our company.”
Dallas lawyer Amy Stewart of the Stewart Law Group said Mosley’s “positive problem-solving attitude is a differentiator.”
“Over the years, Adrienne has been exceptional at building trusting relationships with her business partners inside of PepsiCo Foods because she is loyal and solution-oriented,” Stewart said.
Lawyer after lawyer points out that Mosley is always giving back to the legal profession and her community. She has served on the boards of the Storehouse Community Center, Melville Family Foundation, Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. Center for Education, Justice & Ethics, and the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
In 2016, Mosley led the committee that created and launched PepsiCo’s Thompson Fellowship Program, which is named after former PepsiCo General Counsel Larry Thompson. The Thompson Fellowship provides law students a meaningful professional experience after their first year of law school. So far, about 50 first-year law students have received summer internships in the PepsiCo law department.
The nonprofit that is closest to Mosley’s heart is the Bettye Smith Brown Memorial Scholarship, which is named after Mosley’s mother, who died from complications associated with cancer in 2020. The scholarship’s mission pursues the passion of Mosley’s mother, who “was an unwavering champion of education and academic excellence, inspiring and uplifting countless individuals to pursue their educational dreams.”
Mosley and her sister, Fayedra Brown-Dear, established the scholarship fund initially in partnership with the Vicksburg chapter of the NAACP, where her mom was an active member; a year ago, the partnership shifted to The Community Foundation for Mississippi.
“I felt strongly that her earthly work was not yet done,” Mosley said. “Mommy suffered lots of loss in her lifetime — her mother at a young age, her first child at the age of 2. However, she did not allow that loss, grief or sadness deter her from being the wonderful mother that she was. She didn’t allow herself to be labeled as a victim, nor did any of these losses derail her from the vision that she had for our lives.”
“Mom was a continuous learner, and she championed education vigorously,” she said.
The scholarship, which assists low-income, high-performing high school seniors, provides two Vicksburg-native students each year with $10,000 for college. Since its inception, scholarships have been awarded to eight students pursuing varying types of careers. In addition to covering school expenses, the scholarships have also facilitated international study experiences for some of the students. By focusing on both merit and means, Mosley and her sister aim to uplift the next generation of Vicksburg-bred leaders, just as their mother did for them.
The goal is an endowment of $230,000. The fund is managed by Community Foundation for Mississippi.
“Our mother embodied strength and perseverance throughout her life, overcoming financial challenges to ensure her daughters could attend the colleges of their choice and excel,” Mosley said. “Her favorite quote, ‘Nothing beats a failure but a try,’ was more than just words to her. She deeply understood the importance of effort and perseverance. By trying, you give yourself a chance to succeed, learn and grow, whereas not trying guarantees no progress or success.”
Fun Facts: Adrienne Mosley
- Favorite musicians: Donny Hathaway and Mahalia Jackson
- Favorite restaurant: The Charles — steak and branzino are my favorite foods
- Favorite vacations: South Africa and Italy
- Favorite PepsiCo products: Lay’s Classic, Lay’s Lightly Salted, Bubly
- Favorite movie: The Color Purple
- Favorite beverage: Water, red wine and old-fashioneds
- Hero: My mother, Bettye Smith Brown. We lost her five years ago to cancer, but her legacy lives on vibrantly. Her lessons and quotes continue to guide me to this day.