Sinclair began his career at
General Foods and
Newsweek, before spending more than 15 years at
PepsiCo. In 1989, he was promoted from Pepsi USA's central division president to president of newly formed Pepsi-Cola International. Sinclair was promoted to CEO of PepsiCo Foods and Beverages International in 1993, and ultimately to chairman and CEO of
PepsiCo. He was a member of the PepsiCo board of directors. Sinclair directed Pepsi's entry into the Indian market, and recruited Pepsi's former CEO
Indra Nooyi. Sinclair predicted non-U.S. cola sales of $5 billion by 1995, and exceeded his goal. He retired from PepsiCo in 1996. Since his tenure at PepsiCo, Sinclair has been CEO of
QFC (NYSE), a US west coast supermarket chain backed by billionaire
Samuel Zell's Equity Group. After 18-months, Quality Food expanded rapidly and was sold to
Fred Meyer, for $1.7 billion in 1998. Sinclair helped orchestrate the deal and was a large shareholder. Fred Meyer is now owned by
Kroger/ Sinclair led the financial restructuring of Caribiner International (now
Jack Morton Worldwide) as chairman and CEO of this
Warburg Pincus-sponsored global business communications company. He has served as a partner at
Pegasus Capital Advisors, and an operating partner at Morgan Joseph TriArtisan, a
New York based merchant bank. He was the executive chairman and CEO of Cambridge Solutions Ltd, the second-largest BPO/IT company in the world, which was sold in 2008 to
Xchanging, a
General Atlantic-backed business services company. Sinclair served as chairman of
Mattel from January 2015 to May 2018, and as CEO from January 2015 to February 2017. In May 2018, he became the non-executive chairman of
Reckitt, the maker of
Lysol, having served as a director since February 2015. He is a former director of
Foot Locker,
FW Woolworth Company,
Merisant (Equal Sugar),
PepsiCo and
Perdue Farms He has served as a trustee at
Brunswick School,
Vermont Academy, on the board of overseers at the
Tuck School of Business. ==Personal==