An Amazing CEO, an Amazing Person

I found this book in a Little Free Library in my neighborhood on Sunday and grabbed it quickly. It was a fantastic read. I had heard of Indra Nooyi, but I didn't know the details of her life.

The book was published in 2021, and Nooyi was CEO of Pepsi from 2006-2018. She broke this look at her life into four parts: Growing Up, Finding My Footing, The Pepsico Years and Looking Ahead.

I have already written about a couple of authors who have captured my attention, and Nooyi, as non-white and a woman, went very far to help by setting an example that it doesn't have to be a world run by white men. In her book, she discusses this, and it's clear that overcoming these barriers was important to her, but she didn't create a life about it.

Nooyi, who was born in India, made it very clear that her family is extremely important to her. She discusses her father and her grandfather extensively, but they both died before she became CEO of Pepsi. Her mother seems to have been a great person who helped her be such a successful person. Nooyi discusses how her mother stepped on the accelerator with one foot and the brake with another. She highly values her husband and feels lucky to landed him. She also thinks the world of their two daughters.

She does a great job in the first part describing her life in Madras. She was pretty cool in my view. She started a cricket team for girls and she was part of a band, The LogRhythms. She got a good education in India, but she felt she needed to get an MBA in the U.S. While her parents weren't in favor of her going to Yale's School of Management after she was accepted, she was able to work it out financially and had a fantastic time there, including her summer in Chicago in between the two years. It was there that she met Raj Nooyi. Their courtship was very quick, and their marriage was in the U.S. This was just one of the many ways that she didn't do what was expected.

Her Pepsi story is a fantastic one. She joined the company in 1994 and worked her way up. Back then, the company had three parts (drinks, snacks and restaurants). She helped push the spin-off of Tricon Global (later Yum Brands), leaving it with two. She was also part of the team that bought Quaker Oats, which gave the company Gatorade. As CEO, she had a mantra of "Performance with Purpose" that was about making healthier products, becoming more environmentally concerned and treating employees better.

In the book, she discusses several relationships with important people. Of course, her family stands out to her, and she discusses both of her girls, her parents and grandfather, her sister and brother, her husband and his parents. She is close with some cool people, like Barack Obama and Derek Jeter. She also spoke very highly of someone who was a mentor to her, Gerhard Schulmeyer. I really appreciated the perspective she shared about key people at Pepsi too.

Nooyi is 68. I don't know if she would ever consider running for President, but I would support her if she were to do that. Of course, the law would need to change, as she wasn't born here. She has been a citizen for decades.