Former CEO, PepsiCo
About The Leader
About The Leader
Nooyi's principle of "Performance with Purpose" that prioritized social and environmental needs created more than 22 brands, generating revenues of over $65 B during her 12 years as CEO of PepsiCo.
Indra Nooyi is an Indian business executive and former chairperson and chief executive officer of PepsiCo.
She has consistently ranked among the world's 100 most powerful women.
She was 13th on the Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2014 and the 2nd most powerful woman on the Fortune list of 2015.
Her Purpose
Indra Nooyi's intent was always to realize "healthy revenues" from new consumer centric products while at the same time utilizing a moral compass to cultivate the company's products, people, and profits.
As CEO, Nooyi intended to solve Obesity, -- what she described as the world's biggest health challenge -- by shaping PepsiCo's future portfolio of products based on new health trends and constantly reinventing products and services.
One of the Key learnings from her management education at Yale University was:
" Business cannot exist independent from society"
Innovation and design thinking have been a key driver for her work as a CEO and one of her key principles for cultivating the innovation culture at PepsiCo was empowering people to try new things even if they fail.
"If you don’t give people a chance to fail, you won't innovate. If you want to be an innovative company, allow people to fail."
Case for Change
Case for Change
She believed a key goal of her leadership was to help solve one of the world’s biggest public health challenges, a challenge fundamentally linked to PepsiCo's industry: obesity.
Growth Gap
Growth Gap
Indra Nooyi wanted to make PepsiCo future proof during her tenure as the CEO. This would mean changing the product portfolio to "dial down the negatives and increasing the positives." This would mean also making PepsiCo the company of choice for attracting talent.
Investment Portfolio
Investment Portfolio
“It’s been a long time since you could talk about sustainable competitive advantage. The cycles are shortened. The rule used to be that you’d reinvent yourself once every seven to 10 years. Now it’s every two to three years. There’s constant reinvention: how you do business, how you deal with the customer” (HBR).
Her Leadership Qualities
Her Leadership Qualities
Indra Nooyi was a courageous, visionary and heart-centric leader who looked beyond the obvious challenges to drive a bold, long-term vision for the company.
Courage with Conviction
Courage with Conviction
When Nooyi was CFO of the company, she had to make a bold decision to overhaul the entire IT system with a $1 billion investment. The decision was challenged by other executives and Nooyi faced lot of skepticism in the company concerning this decision. Over the following holiday break, Nooyi did her research and developed a case to present to the company board and executive team about why there was no choice but to replace the IT system. She not only convinced the board, but also won over many of her skeptics, and the decision was rewarded with eventual success.
Key Actions
Key Actions
To make the case for replacing PepsiCo's IT system, she
Studied the problem from every angle
Read 10 IT textbooks, cover to cover
Had professors on call to answer questions
Reviewed all the materials on an IT architecture study commissioned for PepsiCo
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Structured problem-solving
Leveraged her network to get smart faster
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
Developed the courage of your convictions by listening to and addressing all concerns and gaining any additional know-how to address any skeptics
Visionary
Visionary
When Nooyi became CEO, she saw many challenges ahead for both the economy and the company. Hence, she set a bold vision for the company with a clear plan. She sold this vision first to the board then to her team members and later got all employees on board.
Key Actions
Key Actions
With her new role in mind, Nooyi did her research by:
Watching the economy, looking at the trends and seeing rocky times were ahead.
Foresaw a looming financial crisis and tremendous growth in emerging markets.
Formulating a big question about the future: how will we navigate as a company through these changes?
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Sell and communicate a bold vision with a case for change
Set stretch goals
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
As a responsible CEO, do what is right for the company. Invest responsibly in transformation when the world demands a transformation by setting a bold vision with a plan.
Empathy
Empathy
Once Nooyi sold a bold visions a set stretched goals for the company, she developed a culture where every person feels valued and is recognized. Indra Nooyi made an emotional connection with all its employees and motivated them to drive positive results for the company.
Key Actions
Key Actions
Nooyi’s motivation while growing up has always been to make her parents proud; she followed the same goals at Pepsi.
Pepsi had many recognition programs set in place before Indra became CEO; however, Nooyi would also personally write letters to the parents of star performers and of her team members.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Making an emotional connection with employees
Motivating others to achieve stretch goals
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
As a leader, it is important to motivate others and lead them without appealing to authority to drive better results.
Writing letters as a CEO to the parents of her employees and telling them what great jobs their sons or daughters were doing was invaluable to employees.
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