PepsiCo’s Former CEO Indra Nooyi: ‘Don’t just equate female with
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indra nooyi was no stranger to feelings of guilt during her time as CEO and president of pepsico.
As the mother of two girls, Nooyi found herself constantly juggling the demands of motherhood with running one of the world’s largest companies. Amid takeover threats from activist investors and the soda-driven rebranding of Pepsi into a health-focused company, Nooyi faced smaller, but important, battles at home.
at one point, her youngest daughter looked at her and said she wished nooyi could be a “real mom.” Of course, her executive peers, mostly men, faced similar challenges, but they are rarely discussed.
nooyi, now 66, says that needs to change.
“The men had a goodbye in all this, and the woman was considered the main family manager,” he said. “We are at a point now where men and women have to work together and say that woman and family are two definitions…. don’t just equate women with family.”
nooyi’s comments come after the release of her memoir, my life in full, which describes her experiences growing up in india and eventually becoming the first woman of color and immigrant to run a fortune 50 company.
In 1994, when Nooyi first entered Pepsico’s Westchester County, New York, headquarters, there was not a single female CEO on the Fortune 500 list. For her part, Nooyi says she never imagined herself as CEO. Instead, she said that she simply focused on doing the best job possible in the position she held at the time.
Her perspective is novel given our career-planning-obsessed culture.
“If you start by saying, ‘I want to be CEO in 10 years,’ you’re so obsessed with that goal that you forget the work you have to do,” he said. “I urge everyone to focus on work.”
Her approach helped her take on many important roles during her 24-year tenure at PepsiCo, including Chief Financial Officer and President. She attributes her ability to climb the corporate ladder to constantly being over-prepared and amassing a large number of sponsors who championed her.
The first begets the second, he said. Nooyi took preparation so seriously that before giving a keynote address at the national bowling expo, he spent several hours in the bowling alleys, learning to bowl and observing the clientele.
“You don’t show up in front of the bowling convention with all the bowling alley owners without really understanding the bowling industry and without having something useful to say,” he told me plainly.
While her career is filled with principles that she hopes her two daughters will embrace in their own careers, there are some things that Nooyi hopes will be different. after nooyi made a comment about how she thought asking for a raise was “embarrassing” (a comment she says was taken out of context), she insists that her daughters, and all women, stand up for equality wage. she also wants women to celebrate other women at work without hesitation or warning. without that support, progress will remain stagnant.
“We don’t do it right away,” he said. “We say, ‘Oh god, I wonder what those kids in her family are doing,’ or ‘She must not have been babysitting her husband.’ We always think about what she didn’t do to win this award.”
You can listen to our full conversation here.
what works
talk forever. Pinterest whistleblower ifeoma ozoma sounded the alarm against discrimination at the tech company, and now she wants to help other tech workers do the same. She created the Tech Worker Playbook, a website with resources for those who want to speak out against wrongdoing. she discussed the importance of this with us last week on linkedin news live. [linkedin news]
“define yourself” deryl mckissack, president and chief executive officer of mckissack & McKissack, an architecture, engineering, and construction management firm, tells Adam Bryant that it’s essential to create your own brand on the job before others do it for you. “You can feel people doing that, and you can’t let it affect your thinking. it’s so painful, and it’s also paralyzing, and it can divert your attention,” he said. [linkedin]
an increase in funding. 2020 was a tough year for female founders by most metrics. but 2021 seems to be taking a different shape. women-founded companies raised $40.4 billion in 2,661 deals during the first three quarters of this year, shattering the previous record for annual deal value of $23.7 billion in 2019. [pitchbook]
what it is not
Not for “losers”. the same week that the biden administration failed to pass a national paid leave policy, a leading tech executive said that fathers who take their full paternity leave are “losers.” Palantir’s co-founder, Joe Lonsdale, was criticized by other venture capitalists for his comment. [linkedin news]
Ask for help. New research suggests that women are less likely than their male counterparts to request an extension on work projects, and that fear is hurting women’s careers as well as company results. [wsg]
“fear” of work. In a panel discussion with other financial leaders, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman said he recently discovered that women were “afraid” to work for the private equity giant. After some adjustments to the culture, Schwarzman said the proportion of women in his hiring cohort increased from 10% to 50% in 2015. [bloomberg]
