Biography of Indra Nooyi (His childhood, education, career, personal life, achievements, what can one learn from his life)

Indra Nooyi is a business executive born in India, at present, she is the Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo, which is the largest food and beverage company in the world. Nooyi has been listed among the top female executives in the United States and the World's 100 Most Powerful Women. She has been looking for an upgrade, expanding, and diversifying PepsiCo's products and brand by more focusing on soft drinks. 

She has been a very hard-working and innovative person. Born into a middle-class family in Chennai, she came a very long way. She has always denied supporting the so cold binding and conservative norms existing in society. She was an excellent student, she earned her master's degree in Business Administration from the IIM, Calcutta, and also worked with Johnson & Johnson. 

She also went to the Yale School of Management for her further education. She has worked with many prestigious organizations like Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Motorola, and Asea Brown Boveri. She has attained this prestige as a strategist. She has been offered a job by many prestigious organizations including General Electric and PepsiCo. In 1994, she joined PepsiCo. Thereafter she became the CEO of it in 2006.

Indra Krishnamurthy was born on 28 October 1955, in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu. 

In a middle-class but conservative family. Her father was Krishnamurthy and would work in the State Bank of Hyderabad. Her mother Shantha Krishnamurthy was a house maker. 

Nooyi completed her schooling at Holy Angels Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School. She graduated in 1974, and pursued mathematics, physics, and chemistry from Madras Christian College. She would play guitar in a band and be often referred to as rebellion or wild. Nooyi was a member of the girl's cricket team. 

She was an excellent and bright student, through which she got admission to one of India's prestigious institute named the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, she completed her Post Graduation in Management (MBA), in 1976.

Initially, her career began as product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson and Mettur Beardsell which was a textile company. In 1980, Nooyi started working as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and then joined Motorola on the designation of Vice President and Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning, then she moved to join Johnson & Johnson on the designation of a product manager.

Initially, she faced the problem and struggled with her job at Johnson & Johnson as she was assigned the work of introducing Stayfree sanitary napkins in India. She had to struggle a lot due to some policies advertising feminine hygiene products was not allowed at that time in the country so it's wasn't a piece of cake to gain a foothold in the country. Nooyi eventually introduced itself in the country by directly taking the support of young females by marketing to female students at schools and colleges.

Through this incident, she realised that she wasn't completely prepared for the business world and decided to pursue further education at yale school of management in the U.S. in 1978. She enjoyed being a learner and graduated in 1980. After this, she worked as a director of international corporate strategy projects at the Boston Consulting Group. There she had gained enough experience of working on diversifying strategic projects for 6 successive years.

In 1986, she then started working as a senior executive in the automotive division development team in Motorola, and soon in 1988, because of her diligence, she was promoted to the designation of vice president and director of corporate strategy and planning. In 1990 she again changed her job and went, to Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) on the designation of senior vice president and director of the corporate strategy and strategic marketing. 

Till now she has been reflected to be a great asset for many prestigious companies and by the time, she started getting golden offers for head positions in many largest companies in the world. In 1994, she was invited by Wayne Calloway, Jack Welch, the head of General Electric, and PepsiCo CEO, for jobs in their respective organisations. In 1994, Indra Nooyi started giving her services as senior vice president of corporate strategy and development at PepsiCo. 

She was constantly working for PepsiCo for a couple of years under the guidance of Roger Enrico who was the new CEO and started working on the strategies for the company’s diversification, extensive expansion, and constant growth.

She also worked in PepsiCo as Senior Vice President, of Strategic Planning from 1994 to 1996. And then from 1996 to 2000, she served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development. in 2001, she became one of the Board of Directors of PepsiCo. In between February 2000 to April 2001, she was promoted as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PepsiCo. She became the CEO of PepsiCo in 2006 and became the fifth CEO in PepsiCo's 44-year history. Under her guidance in 1997 divestiture Tricon, now known as Yum! Which owns pizza hut and KFC, and in 1998 company could go for the acquisition of Tropicana and also merged with Quicker Oats.

On August 6, 2018, Nooyi retired as CEO of PepsiCo and During her tenure, she made her contribution to the company's sales which grew about 80% higher. Nooyi worked as CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years, which is 7 years longer than any average CEO tenure.

After joining PepsiCo, Nooyi has made her prominent and significant contributions which lead the company’s global strategy and focused on extensive expansion and restructuring process, all the restaurants were divestiture. PepsiCo’s acquisition over Tropicana and merger with Quaker Oats Company was because of Nooyi and her significant contribution. 

Forbes has been consistently listing Indra Nooyi's name among the world's top 100 most powerful women. In 2014, she was at number 13 and in 2015, she was on the 2nd number, In 2017, she was the 2nd most powerful woman in the list of top 19 Most Powerful Women in Business. 

In 2007 She was awarded the third-highest civilian award " Padma Bhushan" by the President of India. In 2009, She has been elected as CEO of the Year, by the Global Supply Chain Leaders Group.

Indra is married to Raj Nooyi, Raj is a management consultant. This lovely couple has 2 daughters. Apart from her busy career, Indra has made sure that her family stays her priority and her closeness with her mother.

When you are given big responsibilities that, surely, it becomes hard to manage the balance between your work and your personal life. Indra Nooyi always believed that we should spend time with our family and friends apart from our work and enjoy every moment with them. 

For some people age is just a number, many great leaders didn't stop even at the age of 40 and 50 and even more. Indra Nooyi become CEO of PepsiCo when she was 50 years old, her diversified experience in different departments of different companies made her wise and far-sighted, and also increased her enthusiasm, and even after 12 years of service she maintained or even increased the quality and level of her enthusiasm this is a quality of a true leader.

 

Everything goes old after a day, life keeps on going and getting upgraded. For attaining something you must have this learning behaviour, keep learning new strategies and solutions. Nooyi always focused on learning whether it comes from a positive or negative experience, she would learn and move on, even on other days she always tried to keep herself updated through learning that a hallmark of a great leader.

Stay Realistic:- Running behind things that aren't even real is just a waste of time and resources, being a leader or an employee you should set and decide what's realistic and even possible to attain. This will save you time, money, and strength. Nooyi during her tenure made sure she set realistic goals for her employees that they can attain and help the company to grow. This is what a great leader does.