Menu
People and Pop Culture

Weekend Plans With PepsiCo's Amanda Helm: Pizza, Soccer, Farmers Markets

The Dew Tour is set to celebrate its 10-year anniversary in September, and it is hard for PepsiCo Dir of Sports Marketing AMANDA HELM to believe she has been with the company since before the event’s inception. Helm, who joined PepsiCo in ’00, works remotely out of Seattle and manages all of Mountain Dew’s lifestyle sports partnerships. With Dew Tour stops still upcoming in Portland, Brooklyn and Breckenridge -- and PepsiCo’s HQ being located in White Plains, N.Y. -- Helm is constantly on the road, working to foster the brand’s relationships with different properties. But she will get a breather this weekend, when she is able to stay home in Seattle and spend all her free time with her two young daughters.

PICNIC IN THE PARK: With Pepsi, we’ve got a great benefit, which is our summer hours on Friday. So we get off a little bit early and even though I’m on the West Coast, I work East Coast hours. On a traditional Monday through Thursday, I work 5:30am PT until about 4:00pm PT. But on Fridays, my day ends -- because everybody in New York is done around 1:00pm ET or 2:00pm ET -- my day ends around 11:00am PT or 12:00pm PT. So Fridays are the days when I get to have some really great one-on-one time with my kids. We usually have a picnic lunch and then I’ll strap my 11 month old to my chest in the Baby Bjorn and take her and my 4-year-old daughter for a nice long walk. We usually go off and venture through the waterfront of Seattle.

A SLICE OF THE PIE: We always have pizza night on Fridays. Sometimes we make our own but most often we go out and explore some of the great pizza restaurants out here in Seattle. Our favorite one lately is a place called Humble Pie, which actually serves pizza out of a shipping container. It seems completely cool and ironic from a Pacific Northwest perspective but it’s one of the best pizza places here in the city and they are all about sustainability -- they have their own local chickens and ingredients. The toppings change with whatever season you’re in, so right now one of the great vegetables that is in season is the summer squash.

RUN AWAY WITH ME: Because of my work schedule, I’m naturally a pretty early riser. On a rare occasion when my girls do decide to sleep in past 6:30am, I really enjoy a quiet run. I love to run, and now that I’m post the early stages of having a baby and it’s been 11 months, I can get back into my routine of running two or three times a week. If the girls do get up and it’s still early, I’ll throw them in the jog stroller and take them with me. But getting up for a run right as the sun rises on a Saturday morning is my idea of a perfect start to the weekend.

PARENTAL GUIDANCE: I think it’s a good thing to show my daughters that exercise and sports are a great lifestyle to participate in and embrace. My dad has been a huge influence on me and my life -- coaching me in soccer, teaching me to both snow and water ski, showing me that there’s fun in being active. He’s been the best encouragement a daughter could ask for and is healing from a battle with cancer right now.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS: Saturday afternoons are all about exploring the day and figuring out which mountain, park, zoo or farm that we’re going to visit. One of the main reasons I don’t spend too much time inside our house in the summer is we’ve got greenways, we have walkways, we have parks, we have mountains to climb. There’s always something to be doing. That’s one of the funny things that I found when I moved from New York to Seattle is that people get to work really early so they can leave a little early because there’s always a mountain to climb or an adventure to be had and people take advantage of it. I’m really embracing that lifestyle.

CONSTRUCTION ZONE: We are building a couple houses, part of a development project that we like to do on our weekends. We bought a property and subdivided the lot. We’re building two houses actually, and are going to be selling one and moving into the other. It’s a modular home project, so it’s kind of a pre-set design with Method Homes that we felt really good about from a sustainability perspective. It’s a development project that my husband has been spearheading and it’s been in the works for about a year and a half, but we’re almost to the finish line. That’s another thing we are working on during the weekends. Usually our Sundays we sort through some of our stuff. It’s funny how years of life and having two kids will help you collect stuff you never thought you needed. We’re sorting through that slowly but surely so we can get to the big move in October.

FARM TO TABLE: Sunday morning is when I take advantage of the great stuff growing in our neighbors’ gardens. I don’t have my own, but they are very thankful and plentiful in giving me food from their gardens. So I’ll use zucchinis from next door and the herbs from our other neighbors and just whip up some great omelets or some fresh berry pancakes and have an event around that bunch. Then it’s off to the farmers market. On Sundays, there’s a farmers market on Mercer Island that we go to every week. It’s a social event. It’s a time to let the kids run around and play soccer on the fields and pick up some fresh fruits or vegetables. It’s something we look forward to every week.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/08/08/People-and-Pop-Culture/Weekend.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/08/08/People-and-Pop-Culture/Weekend.aspx

CLOSE