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

by Indra Nooyi

Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh had entered the room for an update on our group’s progress, and President Obama began introducing the American team to his Indian counterpart. When he got to me—Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo—Prime Minister Singh exclaimed, “Oh! But she is one of us!” And the president, with a big smile and without missing a beat, responded,“Ah, but she is one of us, too!” It’s a moment I never forget—spontaneous kindness from the leaders of the two great countries that have given me so much.

As a business leader, I always tried to anticipate and respond to the shifting culture. As a woman and the mother of girls, I wanted to do everything possible to encourage it.

I think the fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo.

Instead, I thought, I would devote every ounce of my experience and intellect to a manual for fixing how we mix work and family.

My childhood was not a world of “Great job!” It was more like “That was so-so” or “Is this the best you can do?” We were accustomed to honesty, not false encouragement. The reviews didn’t matter on those busy, happy days. We felt important. We were in motion, laughing and carrying on to our next game.

My parents never hugged us, kissed us, or said,“I love you.” Love was assumed. We never shared fears or hopes and dreams with our elders. They just were not the kind to have those conversations. Any effort might be cut off with the words “Pray harder. God will help you find a way.”

He told me he never wanted me to have to put my hand out and ask for money from anyone other than my parents. “We are investing in your education to help you stand on your own two feet,” he said. “The rest is up to you. Be your own person.”

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.

On many days, we also wrote out two pages in handwriting notebooks to work on cursive—usually the phrase “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” because it includes all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Thatha believed that “a good handwriting meant a good future.”

Capturing mosquitoes with a clap of the hands was a required survival skill.

I learned so much from scouting. It taught me about teamwork—how to give and how to get—and about how people have different leadership roles at different times. I learned about trust, with the great example of, literally, pitching a tent. I remember how everyone had to hold the ropes at just the right tension to get the poles to stand up and support the canopy or the whole thing would flop over. Everyone had to do their part or it wouldn’t work.

On report-card day, the last day of every month, Thatha would move a chair outside into the portico to receive the document the moment we approached. If we were not ranked in the top three in the class, preferably first, he was not happy with himself. He took our education personally. Sometimes, he questioned the teacher’s assessments, not usually in our favor.

Family, as powerful as it is, can also be so fragile. Every family runs the risk of unexpected hardship. And without adequate safety nets from government or private enterprise, episodes like my father’s accident can ripple through people’s lives for decades or generations. Most significantly, this event made real my father’s urging for me, as a woman, to always have the means to provide for myself.

After hearing me cry over analytic geometry, differential equations, Laplace transforms, and Fourier series problems, they hired a professor to tutor me at home a few times a week. This was a major concession by my mother, who again had to deal with the stigma of my doing something a little out of the ordinary.

She thought that tutoring suggested there might be something wrong with me and, by extension, with my parents.

“If you take on something, you must give it your all” and “If you make a promise, keep it.” He insisted on reliability.

I contemplated getting on a return flight home the next day.

Still, I do feel connected to everyone who streams into America, whatever their circumstances, determined to work hard and to set in motion a more prosperous life for themselves and their families.

I still have that fear—an immigrant’s fear—that presses me to try to do well and to belong.

I didn’t know that curds in India are called yogurt in the US.

He told me to take each day as it came and to enjoy it. “It will get better every day,” he said.

At first, I was aghast by my American classmates’ relaxed approach to almost everything, and then I was in awe. They exhibited a swagger that no one would have dared in India, where, for two decades, I had watched students stand up in respect whenever a teacher entered the room. Students at Yale put their feet on the desks, munched on sandwiches, called the professors by their first names—“Vic” and “Dave.” They walked in late or left early and boisterously challenged the teachers’ points of view. I found the free-flowing discussions spectacular. Topics were explored in depth; pros and cons debated. I’d never been part of anything like it.

I had to speak clearly and deliberately and remain pithy with my interjections.

Work. It’s not really optional. And that’s good, because the benefits of paid work hardly need review: humans thrive when they are challenged; they are proud when they’ve done a job well and gain from being with people who share the same goals. And we all need money to live.

Management consulting is the wellspring of so many global business careers for good reason. I learned more in six years at BCG than I could have anywhere else as a young MBA.

We were trained from day one to focus on addressing the client’s real challenges with data and clear, objective thinking, not just telling them what they wanted to hear. We revealed uncomfortable truths and would then sit down with company leadership, go through our analysis, and figure out a path forward. I felt this process had an intellectual honesty that sidelined politics, although, of course, there was plenty of corporate politics to wade through, too.

This episode in my life underscores how paid leave to get through all kinds of personal situations—including childbirth and personal illness but also other circumstances—can be a game changer for so many careers. In many ways, it’s only when you have experienced this benefit yourself that you can truly realize its critical importance.

He taught me to simplify complex problems and to communicate them effectively. And he looked out for opportunities for me. He once sent me to teach a class at MIT when the university wanted him.

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.

“Yeah. That’s because Gerhard is impossible to work with,” he said.“He has an idea a minute and no one can keep up with him. We’re hoping you’ll last.” This was essential knowledge. Gerhard needed me to run fast with him and to help push his vision within the organization. He started stopping by my office every morning with new musings, and I started putting each into one of three buckets: (1) worth working on right away, (2) fine to take a few weeks to get to it, (3) not worth pursuing. Over time, I reordered the list, and he saw progress. He never questioned my judgment on how and why I had prioritized his ideas.

Still, I knew nothing about cars and electronics. So, I had two community college professors come twice a week to my office for lessons—one on how automobiles work and the other on solid-state physics and electronics.

My job was to rejuvenate corporate strategy, an underappreciated function in Motorola’s executive branch. I hired a half dozen people, including former colleagues from BCG and other parts of Motorola, and threw myself into the work. I loved managing people and explaining how we could grow Motorola and take on the agile companies in Silicon Valley.

At some point, George Fisher, the CEO, noted my style and pulled me aside. “Be careful about throwing hand grenades,” he said. “You may turn people off even though you mean well.” George coached me to take a different tack, by saying, for example, “Help me understand how this comes together. As I see it, this technology platform requires a lot of investment and patience. Is it prudent to factor in a quick return?” Much as I hated this new, softer way of asking questions, I found it got results. I appreciated how George spoke to me—one-on-one, straight, and in a constructive tone. Overall, good lessons.

“OK,” Raj said.“Then let’s move. I want you to be happy, and it’s clear you are not.” That my husband placed my happiness and career at the center of this discussion was touching indeed. He had clearly thought it through, and he was willing to have his wife and daughter move across the country while he stayed in Chicago and followed us later, God knows when. He knew he’d have to switch jobs in HP or move to another company. He was willing to make sure that I was fulfilled. Raj’s selflessness is all the more remarkable because he was taking on the conventions of the time in so many ways. He was an ambitious, educated man in his thirties on his own corporate climb, with great financial and management prospects. He was also an Indian immigrant in the US, bound by both the behavioral expectations of his family and friends back home, and by the men he was getting to know in this new country. With this choice to change his life for the sake of my career, he was contesting all of that. His courage and devotion to me and to his family is why I adore him and view him as the best thing that ever happened to me. When I decided to quit Motorola, Chris, whose grandfather had founded the company and whose father had been CEO, was visibly upset. He came to our house one weekend morning to convince me to stay. His most compelling argument was that I shouldn’t leave an institution (Motorola) for an individual (Gerhard). I told him I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t feel like I was having...

Multigenerational living, so natural in Asian households and many other cultures around the world, can be a tremendous advantage to working families. Mothers and fathers have an extra set of hands when they need them, and children and grandparents connect, building the kind of deep and lasting relationships that I had with Thatha and that Preetha has with my mother and Raj’s parents. This model also works for caring for our elders and allows for young adults to rely on support from the home base when they are venturing out in the world.

Tara once tried to explain my job to a young schoolmate—and simplified it by saying that I worked at KFC.“That’s so cool!” her friend exclaimed. My job was totally relatable.

Good business demands tough decisions based on rigorous analysis and unwavering follow-through. Emotion can’t really play a part. The challenge we all face as leaders is to let the feelings churn inside you but then to present a calm exterior, and I learned to do that.

kept me closer to my children, although I know it was a poor substitute for actually being there. For many years, the guilt of not being a full-time mother to my kids in their early years gnawed at me. In some ways, I think of these days with great sadness. I often wondered why I kept going. The job was intellectually stimulating, and I truly loved what I was doing. I was sure I’d be miserable if I quit, and I wasn’t willing to step out totally. On a more practical note, we were still paying off some debt from the house renovation, and our expenses were high with two private school tuitions.

Our days are still only twenty-four hours, and we must use them wisely. When we take on additional responsibilities, like caring for children or a sick family member, the best we can do is use the hours we have even more efficiently, without sacrificing our performance at work.

I think that leaders need to understand the details behind what they are approving before they affix their signature to anything. This is not about trusting the people that work for you. It’s about basic responsibility. Don’t be a “pass-through.” I think the people who worked for me came to appreciate that I read everything they sent me, both as a mark of respect to them and their work and because it was my responsibility. I know I drove people crazy with questions, but this was my job. I intended to do it well.

Still, my mother’s comment that night has stuck with me—just vague enough to interpret in myriad ways. First, I think she said something deeply important about how we combine work and family. She was right, of course, that no matter who we are or what we do, nobody can take our place in our families. I was enjoying big success, but the stability of our home meant I would be equally valued and important whether or not I had been named president of PepsiCo, she indicated.

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. Female leaders have this much tougher than male leaders because the world of power is designed for men. Women are always breaking ground as they navigate the upper reaches of business, government, or finance. We have to demonstrate our gravitas in a world where authority and brilliance, to many people, still look like an older gentleman. And we have to absorb dozens of the simple, little slights that show women are not yet fully embraced.

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.

Ibelieve in companies. I think the world is better off with large, private organizations, not only because they add stability but also because they innovate. Companies create jobs and offer products that satisfy people’s demands. They add to the tax base and create community. But I also believe that companies must be good in the ethical as well as the commercial sense. Some thought it odd that a modern-day CEO would try so hard to move an organization beyond the idea that a good company exists to make shareholders happy and beat the competition, within the bounds of the law. But the notion that a company is just a profit center is very recent. Throughout history, companies have prided themselves on their roots in society and the legacy they leave to it. No business can ever truly succeed in a society that fails. I believe that a company’s impact on society needs to be written through all business planning, and that this cannot be an afterthought. What’s good for commerce and what’s good for society have to go together. With PwP, I had a strategy—simple and thoughtful—to take PepsiCo into the future. I was quietly thrilled that Frito-Lay’s managers bought into it early and that our global leaders liked it, too. When I walked through the details with our board of directors, I had four vocal supporters—Dina Dublon, the former CFO of JPMorgan Chase; Sharon Percy Rockefeller, a philanthropist and the CEO of public-television station WETA in Washington, DC; Victor Dzau, then the...

wrote,“Finally, think hard about time. We have so little of it on this earth. Make the most of your days and make the space for the loved ones who matter most. Take it from me. I’ve been blessed with an amazing career, but if I’m being honest, there have been moments I wish I’d spent more time with my children and family. So, I encourage you: be mindful of your choices on the road ahead.”

This is no model for achieving real progress on combining career and family in a world where society’s explicit message to young family builders in recent decades has largely been this: If you want jobs and kids, it’s your problem.

The issues, I find, are frequently a question of care. Care is a warm and fuzzy word, but they talk about it with so much pain. That has always moved me to somehow want to smooth their path.

My conclusion is that our society can leap ahead on the work-family conundrum by focusing on three interconnected areas: paid leave, flexibility and predictability, and care.

This is the most important. I believe that the biggest investment we can make in the future of our population is to build a reliable, highquality, safe, and affordable care infrastructure, focused on childcare from birth to age five, and to expand our thinking to include the whole cycle of life.