Photo courtesy of Alcoa

Janne Sigurdsson, managing director of the Fjardaal smelter in Iceland, says that women need to be encouraged to apply for promotions, because they often don't believe they are qualified.

NEW YORK – Many companies pay lip service to workplace diversity, but few go as far as Coca-Cola, which aims to reach gender parity across all levels of its business by 2020.

“It makes pure, good business sense,” Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent said Tuesday when discussing his initiative, launched in 2008.

Coca-Cola Co., Alcoa Inc. and Unilever on Tuesday were presented Catalyst Awards for their global diversity strategies. The awards event, held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, focused on how other companies can get there too.

“This is hard work. It doesn’t just happen because you want it to,” Kent said. Under Coke’s Global Women’s Initiative, senior-level positions held by women have increased to nearly 30 percent globally from 23 percent, according to the company’s records. Coke’s initiative extends beyond its doors to empower and train women in their communities.

The Coca-Cola plan was triggered by company research that indicated that, globally, women make more than 70 percent of purchasing decisions related to its products.

Implementing the plan, the company set milestones, benchmarks and accountability for the managers. One way to provide clarity for managers, Kent said, is to make it a core goal that impacts pay. “You start shaping your compensation around success in this program,” Kent said. “When you talk about it in those terms, it really resonates.”

“We also made sure everybody understood the business case for it,” said Kathy Waller, Coca-Cola vice president, controller and chair of the company’s Women’s Leadership Council. 

Alcoa, the world’s leading aluminum producer, between 2008 and 2012 increased its female representation to 19 percent from 16 percent among executives, and to 25 percent from 22 percent for professional and plant manager roles. Those percentages increased even as the company cut its global workforce by 30 percent.

“It’s an obvious business imperative if you want to outperform your competition, you have to bring in women,” said Glen Morrison, president of Alcoa Building and Construction Systems.

Alcoa officials said they use outreach efforts and 10-percent bonuses, among other measures, for managers who meet diversity requirements to encourage women to join and stay at the company.

Morrison said it’s critical for companies to create an environment where women can return after having children. “Otherwise you’re grooming this great talent and you’re letting it out of the workplace,” Morrison said.

Janne Sigurdsson is an Alcoa success story. Hired seven years ago as the IT manager for a smelting plant in Iceland, she’s now running the smelter, which is Alcoa’s lowest-cost and most efficient.

At her remote Iceland plant, 33 percent of the managers are women; overall, 22 percent of the workers are women. The goal for the plant is 50 percent. “It’s a tough goal,” Sigurdsson said.

“You need to do something extra,” she said when asked how to hire and retain women.

Sometimes it means sending promising employees back to school, or, as was her case,  doling out encouragement to apply for a promotion.

“I’m not sure I would have applied,” Sigurdsson said of one of her five job changes at the plant. “I was not sure I was ready.”

While she’s not always on the smelter floor, even office staff is trained to do dirty work when the power goes out at the plant, which operates 24/7. “I can change the anodes. I can do pot-tending. I can do that when we have a crisis,” Sigurdsson said.

The Catalyst Awards were launched 1987 by the non-profit Catalyst group, which seeks to expand opportunities for women and business.

For the first time ever, a big soda company is launching a campaign to combat obesity. The Coca-Cola Co., fighting back on how the sweet calories in sugary sodas have become a health policy and obesity bogeyman lately, kicks off its initiative with a new epic two-minute ad called "Coming Together." It's live online and begins airing tonight on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. The spots underline how getting fat comes from consuming excessive calories from any number of sources, and that sodas aren't the only source of weight-increasing calories.

The ad is a montage of video clips like children exercising, scientists testing plants, and a rapid-fire series of a multiethnic smiling faces. While these images play, a female voiceover intones: "Beating obesity will take action by all of us, based on one simple common sense fact: All calories count. No matter where they come from. Including Coca-Cola and everything else with calories. And if you eat and drink more calories than you burn off, you'll gain weight."

Coca-Cola Co. spokesperson Diana Garza Ciarlante told TODAY the campaign's "purpose is to highlight some of the specifics behind the company’s ongoing commitment to deliver a greater choice of beverages, including low and no-calories options, and to clearly communicate the calorie content of all its products."

"We call it 'Coming Together' because it informs Americans about all the company has been doing to bring folks together and deliver more choice and calorie transparency," Coca-Cola Co. spokesperson Ben Sheidler told TODAY. "In it we acknowledge that obesity is the issue of this generation and that we want to step into the national discourse to help identify ways to address the problem with willing partners."

Coca-Cola wasn't able to provide details yet about what other forms the campaign will take. "What I can tell you is that we've never been more committed to doing our part to help address the issue of obesity, and 2013 is going to be a landmark year in terms of expanding partnerships and efforts to educate consumers about energy balance," said Sheidler.

The tide is turning against the 45 gallon sea of soda the average American drinks annually. A New York City ban against the sale of sodas over 16 oz. goes into effect in June. Support for the measure came from arguments that excessive soda consumption contributes to obesity. The mayor of Cambridge, Mass., is considering a similar measure. The New York City Health Department has also run public service announcements asking viewers whether they're "pouring on the pounds" and showing glasses of human fat gushing from a soda can into a glass. The department ran ads on the New York City subway pointing out how you would have to walk three miles from Union Square in Manhattan to Brooklyn to burn off the calories in one 20 oz. soda.

Samantha Levine, New York City Office of the Mayor deputy press secretary, told TODAY, "New York City’s bold action to combat the obesity epidemic is already making a difference and it’s clear the industry is taking notice. But the fact remains that sugary drinks -- which play a unique role in this epidemic and have zero nutritional value -- are the single largest driver of the increase in obesity."

The American Heart Association recommends limiting daily added sugar intake to 37.5 grams, noting it as a contributing factor for obesity. A 20 oz. bottle of Coke contains 65g of sugar.

Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention place American obesity levels at 35.7 percent, up from 13 percent in 1962.

Despite the sugary brown drink backlash, and the fact that soda has no nutritional value, a July 23, 2012, Gallup poll found that the self-reported weights of Americans was essentially the same between those who drank two or more glasses of soda per day and those who drank none.

RELATED: Coca-Cola’s new anti-obesity ad: Help or hurt Latinos?

In late 2012, the health activist group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) sponsored a viral video called "The Real Bears," using spoof characters modeled after the iconic Coca-Cola polar bears, which shared an array of frightening soda-related facts. The video's capper was one of the soda-swilling polar bears getting diabetes and having its foot amputated. It got over 2 million YouTube views.

In response to the new Coca-Cola campaign, CSPI head Michael Jacobson told TODAY that the "industry is under unprecedented pressure from academics, schools and parents. They're trying to stem the tide of criticism by taking a page out of crisis control 101, which is to pretend like they're concerned about the issue. If they were serious, they would stop advertising full-calorie drinks, charge less for lower calorie options, and stop fighting the soda tax. They're just running feel-good ads aimed at neutralizing criticism."

The final decision is up to the American consumer whether they're going to open up their pocketbooks — and mouths. Will they swallow what Coke is selling? And do ads like these really work? Alex Bogusky, co-founder of advertising firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky, who collaborated with the CSPI on "The Real Bears" video, told TODAY: "Yeah they work. People are anxious to hear they can still drink soda like water, so the message falls on many receptive ears."

Asked to respond to the remarks made by the CSPI and Bogusky, Coca-Cola Co. spokesperson Ciarlante said, "Big challenges like obesity aren’t going to be solved without honest and collective action. This includes action by business, government, teachers, scientists, health professionals, parents and, of course, companies like The Coca-Cola Company. We have an important role in this fight which can only be won if everyone works together."