Indra Nooyi: A Biography

by Annapoorna

“Candidness, confidence, boundless energy, unending hope and an energizing vision encapsulated in a compassionate world view.”

Singer, mother, wife, daughter, but best known for being CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi gives new meaning to the term ‘first among equals’.

“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. Simple. You cannot let anybody down. I will tell you, today at PepsiCo if I am given a job, people who work with me and people I work for will tell you that even if Indra is dying she will make sure the job gets done because I just don’t know any other way to work.”

“The core of the concept of success lies in knowing what you want to do in life and those who have triumphed at figuring out that issue should consider themselves tremendously blessed.”

“Once Chandrika went, there was no looking back. That was what the children wanted to do. I would console my mother by saying, ‘the candle has to melt to let the light shine. Think of me as the candle. Someone has to make a sacrifice if the children are to do well’.” Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. — Samuel Johnson —

If she wanted to just earn enough to settle down to a comfortable life, she may not have needed to know the intricacies of baseball. But when you want to get to the heart of things and be more than just average or ‘good enough’ then you have to overcome every single weakness of your heart. That is just what Indra was doing. How did she understand this at such a young age? Perhaps it was one of her mother’s many confidence-building exercises in her childhood. Perhaps it was her innate sportsperson’s spirit. But Indra understood early that success came through building effective teams, which one achieved through communication. And to communicate, she had to learn the language of her team. So Indra started learning the language of baseball as her first step towards building her team.

Another tenet of Indra’s is “never stop learning”. Regardless of age or qualification, Indra’s success in life can also be attributed to her open mind and learner’s attitude. She believes that such learning should not be restricted to academic knowledge but be supplemented with “street smarts”, by being aware of matters and issues in the real world. “Keep that natural curiosity,” as she always says.

“My whole summer job was done in a sari because I had no money to buy clothes,” says Indra, speaking of the hardships of that time but able to see the humour in it today.

“When I came to this country I had no safety net. If I failed, I failed. At the end of the month I would have $2 left over, and if I had $5 I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I had no money. I was dirt poor. At Yale I worked the receptionist counter from midnight to 5 am to make money. When you don’t have a safety net, when you don’t have money to buy clothes for interviews and you are going to a summer job in saris, all of a sudden life gives you a wakeup call and you realize that you have got to work extremely hard to make it happen in this country for you. Having grown up through all those hard knocks, through business school, through youth, you get a different perspective on life and you don’t complain when you have to work hard now because if you are not working hard you think something is wrong. I have a different frame of reference when I approach my job. I know some of you are feeling tired just listening to me, but that is reality. That is how some of us work our way up to the top.”

‘if they can’t accept you in a sari, it’s their loss, not yours’.” She wore a sari for her next interview with a very prestigious management consulting firm and clinched the job and learnt to say, “Never hide what makes you.”

As a role model to millions of young girls around the world, Indra has spoken openly not just about her path to professional success but her personal successes as well. She said, “You have to pick the right husband. I picked the right husband. Raj is a great guy and he has been a great support and I do not know where I would have been without him. I would say that without a doubt. He has been more than a husband. He has been a sounding board or friend.”

Her skill in helping ABB find its direction in North America came to the attention of Jack Welch, then Chairman and CEO of General Electric. He offered her a job in 1994, but so did PepsiCo Chief Executive Officer, Wayne Calloway. As she told a writer for Business Week, the two men knew one another, but Calloway made a much more appealing pitch. He told her, Indra recalled, “Welch is the best CEO I know … But I have a need for someone like you, and I would make PepsiCo a special place for you.”

“You can walk away from the fact that you’re a corporate executive, but you can’t walk away from the fact that you are a mom. In terms of being a mother and a corporate executive, the role of mom comes first.”

Through all of this, she continued to remain uncompromising on some basic things. For example, Indra never tasted meat or alcohol, and although she may have been seen as an anomaly at first, today she says, “Now when we go out, even my chairman will tell everybody to make sure there’s vegetarian food for Indra.” And this was precisely the kind of steadfast grounding she wanted her children to have as well.

“There are times when the stress is so incredible between office and home, trying to be a wife, mother, daughter-in-law and corporate executive. Then you close your eyes and think about a temple like Tirupati, and suddenly you feel, ‘Hey, I can take on the world.’ Hinduism floats around you, and makes you feel somehow invincible.”

Indra knew that getting to that position was one thing; staying there was another matter altogether. “If you want to reach the top of a company, I agree that it can only happen in the United States, but you have to start off saying that you have got to work twice as hard as your [male] counterparts.” And that’s exactly what she did.

It is in situations like this that one gets to see Nooyi’s strategic abilities. She made her board a part of the decision instead of confronting them with the radical idea. “Our board was involved. Every step of it and, I must say, the board contributed hugely to the discussion and it was an excellent discussion.” She turned her decision into a discussion, almost letting the board feel that it was their own decision!

Indra was thirty-nine when she joined PepsiCo. By her forty-fifth birthday, she had been involved in every major strategic decision of the company, including the move to spin off PepsiCo’s fast food chain in 1997, Tropicana’s acquisition in 1998 and the acquisition of Quaker Oats in 2001. The applause for these achievements echoed around the world. But Indra, as usual, had more tricks up her sleeve….

For the first time, Shantha seemed to notice her daughter’s rage. She turned around calmly and said in an even tone, “Look, when you pull into the garage, leave the crown there. Don’t walk in with it, because you are first a wife and a mother. And if the family needs milk, you go get the milk. That is your primary role in life. Everything else you got because I pray for four to five hours a day.”

Finally, Indra says, “Performance with purpose has energised the company. It has tapped into the emotions of people. The human sustainability, the whole issue of transforming the portfolio: this journey we started six-seven years ago is picking up steam, and we are shifting the portfolio to a nice combination of treat-for-you to good-for-you products.”

“That kind of scene may be rare in the hypercompetitive realm of C-suites, but not at PepsiCo. PepsiCo’s three ex-CEOs, all on good terms with one another, weighed in to help Nooyi keep White on board. She says she asked the board to increase White’s compensation to nearly match hers (Nooyi’s 2006 compensation: $7.1 million). White was Pepsi’s best operations man—the kind of guy who would be indispensable in a downturn. He would be an important advisor. In the end, White decided to stay. When it was his turn to speak to the troops at the meeting the following week to announce Nooyi’s appointment, he put it this way: ‘I play the piano and Indra sings.’ Says Nooyi: ‘I treat Mike as my partner. He could easily have been CEO.’ At key meetings she makes sure he is seated on her right.

Betsy Morris further presents a quick comparison between PepsiCo before and after Indra, and the contrast is clear as day: “PepsiCo today has a completely different flavour. Old Pepsi: Fritos and Cheetos. New Pepsi: Stacy’s Simply Naked (pita chips) and Flat Earth (fruit and veggie chips). Old Pepsi: Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew. New Pepsi: Naked Juice and IZZE Sparkling Clementine. Old Pepsi: ill-fitting acquisitions like North American Van Lines and Wilson Sporting Goods. New Pepsi: joint ventures with compatible partners like Lipton (bottled ice teas) and Starbucks (canned frappuccino).”

She once told the BBC that she calls her mother in India twice a day. “At the end of the day,” said the CEO, “don’t forget that you’re a person, don’t forget you’re a mother, don’t forget you’re a wife, don’t forget you’re a daughter.” When your job is done, “what you’re left is family, friends, and faith.”

If I feel comfortable in a sari for a social event, I wear it. You know, a lot is written about ‘how she shows up at board meetings in the sari’. My God, I have never worn a sari to board meetings; people play it out in different ways. I think I have never shied away from the fact that I am an Indian and I don’t intend to, but you can be at home with both cultures.”

When Indra was travelling, her daughter would call the office to ask for permission to play Nintendo. The receptionist knew the routine and would ask, “Have you finished your homework? Have you had your snack? Okay, you can play Nintendo for half an hour.” She would then leave a voice message for Nooyi telling her she had given Tara permission to play Nintendo. This showcases how helpful the culture at PepsiCo is.

“Indra Nooyi is American in the energy, enterprise and innovation she brings to her professional life; yet, she manages this without sacrificing the Indianness that is an essential ingredient in her personality. Her saris, her prayers are all the stuff of legend, an image of Ganesha has pride of place on her work table, and visitors are as apt to be drawn into a discussion of the elephant-headed god’s place in Hindu iconography as into discussing the best practices of business.

“For a community caught between two positions—to stay true to your heritage, or to assimilate, to merge, with the culture of the adopted land—Indra Nooyi is the perfect example; her life, her achievements, indicating that the highest accomplishment is possible without sacrificing who, and what, you are.”