My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future

by Indra Nooyi

I believe that we must address the work and family conundrum by focusing on our infrastructure around “care” with an energy and ingenuity like never before. We should consider this a moonshot, starting with ensuring that every worker has access to paid leave, flexibility, and predictability to help them handle the ebb and flow of work and family life, and then moving fast to develop the most innovative and comprehensive childcare and eldercare solutions that our greatest minds can devise.

I called this mission Performance with Purpose, and, for a dozen years, I weighed every decision against these measures, making constant trade-offs to achieve a more sustainable, contemporary organization.

Family, I learned from the very beginning, is fundamental to our lives on this planet. It is both my foundation and the force that has propelled me. The family that I created in the US with my husband, Raj, and my two daughters, Preetha and Tara, is my proudest achievement. I belong to an Indian family of a particular era and am defined by this heritage, but I know that family comes in every form. We thrive, individually and collectively, when we have deep connections with our parents and children, and within larger groups, whether we are related or not. I believe that healthy families are the root of healthy societies.

reflecting on Thatha’s life. And I remembered the things Thatha told me: “If you take on something, you must give it your all” and “If you make a promise, keep it.” He insisted on reliability. He liked to say he was a lifelong student. “Even though I am in my eighties, I am a student like you all,” he said. “The day I stop, my mind will atrophy. And then the body will follow.”

The family support didn’t end there. For the next few years, Raj and I forged ahead in our jobs because we had an extended network, on his side and mine, who stood by us and wanted us to succeed.

He had an incredible ability to paint a picture of the future in words.

Yet again, I had the good luck of a boss who was a mentor, advocate, and friend. In return, I put in very long hours. My loyalty to him was unwavering.

But now, for one cold, dark season at least, Raj and I were on our own. And the next five months drove home how difficult it is for two working parents with young children to cope in an environment where quality, affordable childcare is not ubiquitous and where support systems for working families are completely lacking.

I also knew, as a woman, I had to outdo the men.

Raj and I talked it over, and we agreed that this wasn’t a time to worry about my own career but rather the good of the whole enterprise. The new CEO had made his decision; it was time to get down to work.

“Listen to me,” my mother replied. “You may be the president or whatever of PepsiCo, but when you come home, you are a wife and a mother and a daughter. Nobody can take your place. “So you leave that crown in the garage.”

We know that, on the whole, women’s median salary in the US is about 80 percent that of men. In my world, pay disparity was expressed in smaller increments: a woman would get 95 percent of the base pay of a man doing the same work. If I asked why she was getting 5 percent less, I’d be told, “It’s such a small difference, don’t worry about it.” Sometimes, I would fight back a little, with “then why don’t we pay her 105 percent of what he is getting?” It was always an uphill battle when, in reality, HR should have been flagging these issues and systematically addressing them.

Our surrogates—all those special people in our children’s lives who support them, encourage them, and love them, too—have a profoundly important role to play for all of us. After all, it does take a village to raise a child.

The trappings of leadership in our world—money, travel, meeting famous and fascinating people, beautiful living and work spaces—become easy to adapt to and accept. But true leaders must keep their feet firmly rooted to the ground and focus on the responsibilities of their jobs. That’s what I always tried to do. I felt I was a role model, with everyone watching me. I had very difficult jobs to do and tried to take everything else in stride.

Most important, I was a dreamer and a doer, and I could paint a vivid picture of the future for PepsiCo and lead people to deliver on that vision. In retrospect, I understand why the board selected me as CEO. But I also had butterflies in my stomach.

And if we didn’t deliver performance, we couldn’t fund purpose. Performance and purpose reinforced each other. It was a virtuous circle.

The most memorable comment came from a portfolio manager in Boston. “Who do you think you are?” he asked me. “Mother Teresa?”

Huge change has no shortcuts. It requires honesty, agility, and courage. Once I committed to transforming PepsiCo, I felt my education and experience merging to serve that mission. I was ready for it. I knew what to do.

Leaders must then model the behavior themselves. There can be no tacit acceptance of stereotypically biased behavior, and, in my view, it needs to be called out when it happens. When you see people talking over anyone, especially minority voices who face this regularly, stop it. When you see a woman being put down, stop it. I firmly believe this can be done artfully and effectively. And doing it sets the tone. We don’t tolerate negative, discriminating behavior against our daughters or sisters or wives. Why do we allow it in the workplace, directed at women who are daughters and sisters themselves?

If anyone is wondering, there is no club of the most senior women in corporate America.