Book Review by K.S.Loganathan
Indra K.Nooyi is a Madras-born American business executive who was the Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018. She has been named among the Most Powerful Women in Business in America during those years and inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. This is her story of finding great business success and a one- note theme of her own experience and example of a working woman achieving work- life balance as an immigrant in America.
Indra belongs to the first generation of women to enter professional management schools and enter the world of business in the 1970s. She arrives in Connecticut’s Yale Hall of Graduate Studies on a weekend to ” surroundings that could not have contrasted more sharply than the idea of America she had gleaned from its cultural exports she was familiar with”( in India- Hollywood, music and books).Even though she comes from a privileged background and has a backstop, she still carries the immigrants fear to do well and to belong, like cursive writing in copybooks.
The multi-generational living in Madras is gradually transposed to the U.S. as her and her husband Raj’s kinfolk settle in America and help with babysitting, childcare, household help in emergencies etc. As elsewhere, success in corporate big leagues comes at the cost of upending home lives, absorbing new things and moving relentlessly. Indra is fortunate in being at the right place , at the right time, with the right mentors.
As CEO of PepsiCo, Indra K.Nooyi shifts Pepsi from a soda-and- chips company to a diversified company through investments, acquisitions, divestments and internal restructuring .She was the chief architect of ‘Performance with Purpose’,the company’s mission to deliver sustained growth through the introducing nourishing products and enhancing process efficiency and cherishing the people who are the stakeholders. Her final advice to PepsiCo employees is to strive to be good listeners, lifelong learners and be mindful of time spent with family.
Two characters stand out in her story. One is her Amma, who has one foot on the brake( to make sure the daughters were protected and well mannered) and the other foot on the accelerator to help them gain respect, independence and power.When Indra rushes home to share with her mother her excitement on becoming CEO, she coolly sends her back on an errand to buy milk , telling her later to” leave her crown at the garage”. The other is Steve Reinemund, the CEO she succeeded, who always tried to do the right thing ,and steered Indra” to look after the pennies”.
One gets the impression that Indra Nooyi plays it safe by giving a varnished version , listing her achievements rather than her learnings from failures and travails. Her becoming an American citizen is celebrated in an understated way, and her Americanization is complete- her life is full- with her power dressing in place as CEO. The book is recommended as a business strategy case study for MBA aspirants.There is a special chapter on India, nostalgic in part, laying out the Gender Gap and the scope for GDP improvement through women empowerment.
Picture by K.S.Loganathan
