I do not define myself by my job: Indra Nooyi

NEW YORK: When Indra Nooyi, then Chief Executive Officer of Pepsico was offered the position of Chairman replacing Steven Reinemund, her first thought was ‘Who is going to clean my closet?’ Her concern stemmed from the fact that she had been on vacation and just got down to cleaning her closet -- left neglected for over two years -- when Reinemund dropped in to ask her to take over his position.

While the said closet still remains in disarray today, Nooyi has been writing legacy as the first woman (and Indian American) to become Chairman of the food and beverage giant becoming one of the most powerful women in the world, and in that job, using her twin attributes of being a woman and an Indian, to transform the company’s core culture.

Talking at the Hazen Polsky Foundation President’s Forum series at Asia Society in New York, Apr 14, Nooyi said she can’t separate attributes of being Indian and being a woman that may have helped her make a difference in the work culture she introduced to Pepsico since becoming Chairman. “The way I approach this job is I look at the people working in Pepsico as part of the Pepsico family and see myself as the matriarch.”

Nevertheless, her intrinsic Indian values have bonded Pepsico’s nearly 200,000 employees into an extended family. It’s not just the employees but their families too feel equally involved. “Every quarter I make it a point to write personal notes to the spouses of executives thanking them for supporting their respective spouses through the long hours of work that they put in for the company,” she said.

What perhaps touched the Pepsico employees’ families the most was Nooyi’s outreach to her executive staff’s parents. “On one of my visits to my mother in India I saw that most people who came to ‘see me’ would invariably move on to actually talking to my mother and giving her the entire credit for my upbringing and success. When I returned to the US I realized how most young men and women in this country were disconnected from their parents. I realized that the parents rarely were part of their children’s professional progress. So I set about writing notes to the parents of each of my senior executive staff, detailing how their son/daughter had progressed in the company. Their response was overwhelming. There was an outpouring of emotions and the parents were thankful for being made a part of their children’s lives.”

Carrying her Indianness a tad bit farther, Nooyi cited another instance of a young and talented employee who had decided to quit and join another company. When Nooyi’s efforts to convince him to stay back did not work, she called up his mother and explained to her why Pepsico was a better place for his career prospects. “Well, he did not leave us. And that I feel is how my Indianness works,” she said.

Talking about mothers, Nooyi’s own mother’s reaction upon hearing of her daughter making Chairman of Pepsico was a series of comments: “But why do you need any more publicity?” “Does it mean even more time away from the kids?” “Oh, I’d have to go to the temple again to pray and maybe fast for one more day for your wellbeing.” “Are you sure you can do it?” and “But why is Steve (Reinemund) leaving, he is such a young boy, should I call him up and ask him to stay back?”

Nooyi sighs, “It was anything but I-am-proud-of-you.”

Dropping pearls of personal wisdom she says, “I do not define myself by my job and I tell my kids to not define their lives by the income we make. So long as you don’t confuse your net worth as your self worth, you will be okay.”

The most difficult time she has had to face in her job when the company had decided to layoff 3000 employees recently. “It was a very painful decision for me. I struggled with it a lot because it was not just the 3000 employees that were to be affected, but their families too. It was the most difficult thing for me to do.”

That apart, if her kids make her feel proudest in her personal life, professionally she feels proud to be a part of Pepsico’s transformation in the past few years in terms of embracing diversity and adopting the process of ‘performance with purpose’, as also transforming its product portfolio.

Does she have any regrets in life? “Yes, my single biggest regret is that I could not spend enough time for the first five years of my first daughter,” she says. “It was painful when I realized it.”

As for aspiring women corporate leaders, Nooyi says the path to CEO is not an easy one. “It’s not inherited.”

Nooyi said there were perhaps not too many women who made enough sacrifices to make to the level of CEO which is the reason there still aren’t many women in the top jobs in the US. “But now, there’s a critical mass of young women who are moving up fast and in the next 10 years, you will see a completely different face of leadership.”

Having met President Barack Obama, would she be open to an administrative position if offered? To that Nooyi responds that political or administrative appointments are not for her. “I can’t go through those confirmation processes,” she said, “They are too intrusive. I’m fine where I am in Pepsico.”