Chennai Express: The Indra Nooyi Way

 

A conservative Tamil woman stepped into PepsiCo in 1994. A decade later (in 2006), she commanded the entire company as its CEO. Indra Nooyi's rise in the corporate world is a story of meteoric rise. Not only did she reach the top, she redefined it by becoming the first woman, the first woman of colour and the first immigrant to lead a Fortune 50 company.

In the quiet corridors of a Chennai middle-class home, October 28, 1955 marked the arrival of Indra Nooyi. She attended Holy Angels School in Chennai, earned a bachelor's degree from Madras Christian College, and received an MBA from IIM Calcutta. But her ambition wasn't confined to textbooks. In her youth, she wielded a cricket bat and strummed a rock guitar, revealing a spirit as diverse as her intellect. Emigrating to the US in 1978, she obtained her Masters in Management from the famous Yale School of Management.

She has been consistently ranked among the world's most powerful women by publications like Forbes and Fortune. Time magazine included her among the world’s 100 most powerful people.  She received the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, in 2007. In 2016, President Donald Trump appointed her as an advisor on the President's Strategic and Policy Forum. She currently serves on the boards of Amazon, Royal Philips, Temasek and the International Cricket Council. She also serves on the Dean's Advisory Council at MIT's School of Engineering. When she retired from PepsiCo, her salary was around 200 crores per year, making her the 7^th highest paid CEO in the world. According to Forbes, her net worth is 3000 crores.

She has US citizenship and resides in Greenwich, Connecticut. In her New York Times bestselling book, My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future, Indra Nooyi recounts her remarkable journey to the CEO of PepsiCo, defying expectations and overcoming numerous challenges

Ravindra Zinjurke