Biography of "Indra Nooyi"

India has a long history where women’s have shown that they are not only the homemaker, however, with their sheer strengths and courage, they have ruled over India from the Medieval History period of India take the example of Razia Sultan, then Rani Laxmi Bai, then Sarojini Naidu, then Indra Gandhi, then Ashiwarya Rai and latest entrant in the block is the Indra Nooyi, a superwomen, who has been placed 4^th in the list of worlds topmost influential women’s by the Forbes Magazine.

Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is her full name and she belongs to the Southern Indian city of Chennai. She was born in 28 October 1955 in Madras, now Chennai. She has done her graduation from Madras Christian College (MCC) in Chemistry, Physics and Math. On completion of her graduation she went to Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta for doing Masters in Finance and Marketing. Soon after completion of her MBA she joined ABB and then Johnson and Johnson (J&J) in Mumbai. One of her achievement with J&J is her close association with launch of the sanitary napkin “Stayfree”. From there she has been no stopping her life.


However, her career profile was not satiating her wishes to do more in life and she persuaded her parent to let her study at Yale Management School in US. She completed her Master’s in Public and Private Management form Yale. Here in US before landing in the Pepsi in 1994, she had worked with Boston Consulting Group and Motorola. Indra coaxed the CEO Roger Enrico of the Pepsi to follow-up the company’s restaurant division, including brands such KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, as the chief strategy officer.

Nooyi not only shows tenacity for follow-up, but she equally emphasized in the Mergers and Acquisition. This was bolstered by the acquisition of the Tropicana and Quaker fruit juice brands. As a typical tycoon of the business from her acumen she has predicted the slowdown in the popularity of aerated soft drinks in the markets worldwide. That’s how she has enhanced her position in the business world where for a woman it’s very difficult to leave any mark on the corner room office of the big conglomerate. She is the one who has meticulously planned for the foray of Pepsi into the sport drinks market in association with Gatorade.

Her quick decision making ability and sticking to the work until it’s got accomplished has drawn this comment from the Enrico that “If she gets an idea, she goes after it. There’s no stopping her.” No doubt her firmness and go getting attitude has won her laurels in the company and this helped her to build a strong foundation in the career graph to reach the top echelons in the organization where many people just day dreams to reach..


Indra Nooyi's mantras for success:

• You give a team of people a set of objectives and goals and get them all to buy into it, and they can move mountains
• Aim high and put your heart into it.
• What's important is trying to be the best and working to get there. And that's how you fulfil your potential.
• I'm putting my hand up and saying, 'Able body, ready to work. I can scrub floors to address big issues.
• Work for the right person. Work for a company that wants you to succeed. Don't play politics and just focus on the job at hand
• Take a stand. Be known for your courage and confidence.
• Success isn't money, prestige or power because net worth can never define self-worth. True success is being happy with yourself, is being fulfilled. And that comes from devoting your time, your life, to doing what you love the most.
• At the end of the day if I stand back and have regrets, it is never going to work. You just look forward and get on with life.
• What you know is more important than who you know because that's what gets you 'who you know.'
• Don't think of the difficult journey. Think, instead, of the wonderful destination.
• We are too attached to the known security of the past and too wary of the challenging promises of the future. This often leads to complacency or inertia.
• You've got to say, at every point in your life, if you were to drop dead, would your epitaph be something that you could be proud of? Is your legacy something that would linger long after you?
• If there is (a glass ceiling), remember it is made of glass and it can be easily broken. All you have to do is try.
• The best test is that I wake up every morning dying to come to work.
• My parents and my grandfather taught me that when you do a job, you got to do it better than everybody else. Simple. You cannot let anybody down.