Indra Nooyi's Success Story: How She Reached the 13th Place on the Forbes List?

The name Indra Nooyi conjures up images of achievement, leadership, and tenacity. She is a well-known personality in business and an inspiration to plenty of aspiring businesspeople.

 

One of the biggest food and beverage corporations in the world, PepsiCo, has Nooyi as its former CEO. Over her more than ten-year employment, she played a crucial role in directing the company’s strategic ambitions and expansion.

 

Nooyi’s success is evidence of her unrelenting dedication, original ideas, and potent leadership abilities. Indra’s story is an inspiration for all women who feel stuck in countries where patriarchy still rules.

 

How did Indra manage to reach the position of CEO of one of the world’s largest companies, coming from an ordinary middle-class family, and what did she need to achieve that, find out in the rest of the article!

 

Childhood and Early Beginnings

 

Indra Krishnamurti was born at the end of October 1955, on the 28th to be exact, in the beautiful Indian city of Chennai.

 

Despite the fact that her family occupied a middle-class position in society, Indra managed to break into the list of the 100 most successful women in the world.

 

Due to the fact that her grandfather was a judge and her father worked in a bank, her mother influenced her formation and strong character, and today Indra often credits her for most of her success.

 

Her mother was an ordinary housewife, who devoted her free and non-free time to her children and everyday life, and did her best to make her children successful.

 

She constantly developed them spiritually by organizing competitions on the topics: “What would I do if I were very famous?”, “What would I change if I became president?”, “If I were an influential politician, what would I do?”…

 

Indra and her sisters had to work hard to get their mother to accept their response since she was a stringent judge, a harsh critic, and annoyed by even the tiniest details.

 

During that time, it was disgraceful to educate women to succeed and manifest in a variety of professions in an effort to achieve independence and supremacy.

 

Thankfully, Indra’s family did not hold these opinions; as a result, they let her play croquet and be a part of a rock band instead of learning how to do simple household chores.

 

Because of Indra’s strong will and desire to continuously violate rules and restrictions, it was challenging to deny something from her.

 

Krishnamurti excelled in her academic performance at the same time, taking the top spot on the list of students.

 

Even her grandfather deconstructed every mathematical textbook theorem with her because he knew he wouldn’t live long.

 

By the way, she still enjoys music, and occasionally she plays the guitar for her staff members while singing and requesting their involvement.

 

She even even hired an orchestra for a conference so that one of the staff members could sing and feel like a celebrity.

 

Study and Career

 

Krishnamurti graduated from the Indian Institute of Management. Her first job was the student newspaper, where she was tasked with selling advertising pages.

 

She then joined Mettur Beardsell, a textile company, as a product manager. After that, there was an interesting experience at Johnson & Johnson.

 

That job was a great opportunity, except that at that time she had a task that was almost impossible – to advertise feminine hygiene products.

 

At that time, Indian women did not appreciate products of this type too much, so it was difficult to find the right way for their advertisement and successful sale.

 

Indra stated to the media on occasion that she was occasionally inspired by difficulties rather than being scared of them.

 

After a significant upheaval in her life, she makes the decision to go to the United States in order to attend the Yale School of Management.

 

The choice angered the family since it severely reduced her prospects of getting married.

 

But Krishnamurti also triumphed in this situation after meeting Raja Nooyi, a lovely Indian who not only accepted her as his wife but also loved her so much that he gave up his job at Hewlett-Packard so she could pursue her own profession.

 

Because of her preference for saris, Indra found it challenging to adopt the American business women’s attire. With the help of her university’s professor, Indra made the decision to be true to herself and wear outfits that made her feel good about herself.

 

Therefore, during the Boston Consulting Group’s subsequent job interview, a black woman wearing a sari was hired as an intern and then promoted to project director.

 

After six years, she was battled for by several prominent firms.

 

Beginning of Career at Pepsi

 

She had already worked for a number of major corporations, so when PepsiCo offered her the senior vice president job, she was intrigued.

 

For the business and for the Indian woman personally, this was a significant occasion. As PepsiCo was struggling, the restaurant industry was bringing the entire company down and putting its image in jeopardy.

 

It took a lot of work on Indra’s part to persuade the director to sell it and 60% of the company’s stock. The turnover decreased by around 10 billion, and it took ten years to get it back to normal.

 

Yet, in Nooyi’s opinion, this choice was well worth it. After all, despite the lower turnover, the profit increased several times, and the money from the sold shares went to the development of the corporation, which only strengthened its position on the world market.

 

By the way, they bought those shares back in 2010, 11 years later.

 

She attained the position of financial director thanks to her initiative in acquiring the Tropicana juice rights in 1998.

 

She had discovered that consumers tended to drink Pepsi later in the day and preferred nutritious meals in the morning.

 

Next it was Quaker Oats’ time, where they started making Gatorade sports drinks after recognizing they needed to reach a wider demographic of customers, particularly athletes who wouldn’t risk consuming beverages with a high sugar content.

 

Today, Pepsi Corporation is mainly engaged in selling healthy food products. For example, oatmeal, contrary to popular belief that PepsiCo is just soda.

 

And since 2010, they also received the rights to Wimm-Bill-Dann, starting to master the production of dairy products.

 

Since 2001, Indra has been given an additional position — president of the company, which she held until 2018.

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