Indra Nooyi: A Biography

by Annapoorna

All work and no play did not make Indra a dull girl. “I wanted to play cricket. I wanted to be a rock star. But my grandfather would always say, ‘You are going to study hard.’ And so it was I studied all my life.”

According to Indra, one of the secrets behind her unparalleled desire for success is that while she and her siblings were growing up, their mother would have them deliver a post-prandial speech every night

on topics like what they wanted to be, “… whether it was the president of India, prime minister … or chief minister of a state.” Following each of her children’s speeches, she would cast her vote for the winner, the reward being a small piece of chocolate. Perhaps these were simple childhood games to them at the time, but today Indra recognizes the role they played in slowly building her confidence and understandably refers to her mother as one of her “greatest role models”.

However, even while she instilled in them great ambitions to go beyond their limited world, she also inculcated in them an understanding of the traditions of south Indian life. Her ambition was consuming and she passed that fire to her children. And yet she also wished as earnestly that her daughters get married and have children.

More than open mindedness, it shows the determination of the family to provide their children with the best possible education. Perhaps going to a co-educational institution during a period when co-education was still gaining acceptance was one of the reasons Indra learnt to stand as an equal among equals and storm a male bastion in later years.

They also often identify a trait that Indra herself thinks was one of the things her family taught her,

which is that she never left a job halfway. As she said in an interview, “One of the things my parents and my grandfather taught me was when you do a job you have got to do it better than everybody else.

It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog, It’s been a hard day’s night, I should be sleeping like a log — The Beatles —

Indra of course was a frontrunner, though few recognized it at the time.

Shantha took heed of these warnings but also had her own mindset. She was a bundle of contradictions but definitely seemed stronger than her husband.

“Behind my cool logic lies a very emotional person.” And

But Indra understood early that success came through building effective teams, which one achieved through communication.