Wishesh magazine january 2018 Wishesh magazine january 2018 | Page 65

Indra Nooyi is an Indian-
born American business
executive currently serving
as the Chairperson and Chief
Executive Officer of PepsiCo,
one of the largest food and
beverage businesses in
the world. Nooyi is one of
the top female executives
in the United States and is
consistently ranked among
the World’s 100 Most
Powerful Women. She has
been instrumental in the
diversification and expansion
of PepsiCo’s brands which
had primarily been more
focused on soft drinks.
Known to be a highly
innovative, energetic, and
hard working person, Nooyi
has risen to become one
of the top most female
executives in the world
from a modest beginning.
Born into a middle-class
family in Chennai, Nooyi
has always been someone
who refused to adhere to the
conservative norms of the
society. A brilliant student,
she completed her MBA
from the Indian Institute of
Management in Calcutta,
and worked with Johnson
& Johnson. Then she
proceeded to the Yale School
of Management to further her
education and worked with
Boston Consulting Group
(BCG), Motorola and Asea
Brown Boveri. She gained
much prominence as a
strategist and received job
offers from several prestigious
companies including General
Electric and PepsiCo. She
chose to join PepsiCo in 1994
and quickly rose up the ranks
to be named its CEO in 2006 management. To fund her
studies at Yale, she started
working as a receptionist from
midnight till sunrise.
Childhood and Early
Life With her hard earned money
from her toils, she purchased
her first suit that she would
wear to her very first Interview
after her Masters at Yale. She
got rejected at the interview
because she wore trousers
which reached her ankles.
Dejected, she turned to
her professor at Yale who
advised her to wear what she
felt comfortable in. At the next
interview, she wore a sari
and got the seat. She learned
early on in her life to be who
she really was and express
herself for how she really felt.
Indra Nooyi, was born on
28th October, 1955, into a
conservative Tamil family
in Chennai. Her father used
to work at the State Bank of
Hyderabad.
Since childhood she and her
sister were groomed by their
mother who would always
ask them what they would do
when they grew up and would
award the one with the best
answer. This compelled Indra
to think hard on what best she
could become when she grew
up.
To pursue higher studies,
she went to US with little
money. She got her masters
degree from Yale school of
Education
She attended Holy Angels
Anglo Indian Higher
Secondary School in Madras
(Chennai now). She went
on to receive a Bachelor’s
JANUARY 2018 | WWW.WISHESH.COM