Indra Nooyi – CEO of PepsiCo
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
India
INDUSTRY
Food and Beverage
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is an American/Indian business executive known for her role as Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo and for her highly successful strategic redirection of the company to a healthier product line.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Indra Nooyi was born in 1955 in Chennai (then called Madras), India to a Tamil family. Nooyi completed her secondary education at the Holy Angels Anglo Indian School and continued her studies at the Madras Christian College, where she achieved a bachelor’s degree, and at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, where she earned her MBA. Nooyi also attained a master’s at Yale School of Management in 1980 and holds several honorary degrees from universities in the United States.
EARLY CAREER
At the start of her career, Indra Nooyi held positions at Johnson & Johnshon and Mettur Beardsell. She also completed an internship with Booz Allen Hamilton while completing her studies at Yale. After her final graduation, Nooyi started working at Boston Consulting Group and achieved independent directorship at Schlumberger.
Indra Nooyi – CEO of PepsiCo
Just because you are CEO, don’t think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization
ACHIEVEMENTS AT PEPSICO
In 1994 Indra Nooyi joined PepsiCo. She was appointed as Chief Financial Officer in 2001 and took the lead as President and Chief Executive Officer in 2006. Since the start of her tenure, the annual profit of the company has increased by US$3.8 billion. Nooyi was the driving force behind the following major projects:
- Creating Yum! Brands
- Acquiring Tropicana
- Merging with Quaker Oats Company and acquiring Gatorade in the process
- Removing aspartame as the sweetener of Diet Pepsi
- The reclassification of PepsiCo products
RECLASSIFICATION OF PRODUCTS
Through the reclassification of the company’s products as ‘fun for you’, ‘better for you’ and ‘good for you’ Nooyi allocated corporate budgets to improving the health value of the company’s products. The ‘fun for you’ category included products like regular soda drinks and potato chips. The ‘better for you’ category included low-fat or diet product offerings and the ‘good for you’ category included healthy items like oatmeal. The aim of the reclassification was to make PepsiCo products healthier.
RECOGNITION
Indra Nooyi consistently appears on the Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful women. She achieved the 13th place on the list in 2014. Nooyi was also ranked on the 2016 Fortune Most Powerful Women list in 82nd place, named in the 50 Women to Watch in 2007 and 2008 in the Wall Street Journal and features as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World according to Time Magazine. Fortune rated Nooyi as the #1 in the Most Powerful Women in Business list in 2009 and 2010. In addition to several business accolades, Indra Nooyi was also rated as 3rd on the Forbes World’s Most Powerful Mom’s list.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Indra Nooyi has two daughters
- Her family resides in Greenwich, Connecticut
- She serves in the World Justice Project as Honorary Co-Chairperson
- Nooyi’s older sister is the singer Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon
