Indra Nooyi in her
conversation with Stephen J Dubner on
the topic “The Secret Life of CEO” shares her valuable experiences in her
journey as a CEO of Pepsi. Excerpts from that conversation:
She
is a conservative person, non-conventional and a fire brand. She had no plans
to become a CEO yet she continued to make consistent gradual moves. She agrees
that being a CEO is a very daunting job and one has to be ready from day one to
take the mantle. She also pre warns that there is nothing called honeymoon
period and one has to learn in a hurry “how
to run the company through extreme periods of adversity and there is no book
you can read. You have to develop the book as you go along that is very tough.”
She emphasizes
that consumer taste changes all the time which is a great opportunity to change
the entire portfolio and the co-culture so as to deliver phenomenal returns.
She says, “Study every idea very
carefully and think of its implementation.” She opines that listening to activist
and treating them with respect makes more sense. Her view for younger
generation is to train them very well in STEM (Science, Maths, Engineering, and
Technology) disciplines especially when they are young; learning and
understanding STEM at an young age helps
the individual to learn all other subjects easily while moving up to higher
positions whatever the job is. She used the term “incremental innovation” for
growth and scaling.
For
women employees she suggests to develop “adaptation strategy” especially to
tackle domestic concerns so that women will not feel resentful and angry. She
insisted the need for complete support and help from the extended family to
handle issues relating to kids and aged parents; so that women can scale to
higher positions. For women the biological clock and career clock are in total
conflict with each other she says. Women are still searching for role models to
learn lessons she says. Her deep concerns are, even today Women CEO are looked
at differently, everything you say or do gets analyzed in a different way. “Any industry trendsetters go through this
sort of scrutiny, criticism or commentary.” Hopefully the number of women
CEO increases and are not seen as women CEOs but leaders of a big enterprise. Hope
this comes sooner or later. She says.
She laments
that it is incredibly lonely at the top; to overcome this she suggest to talk
to lot of people especially other CEOs you trust, learn from them what they did
when faced with similar situations. She also suggests that women CEOs have to
create their own eco-system…without giving away any confidential information.
She emphasizes that the day you become a CEO you have to thing of grooming a
successor—safe hands to do the uncomfortable jobs. According to her business
issues never become business issues; putting money to work for the next
generations is critically important; thinking about society and community; and to
evolve a business model that takes into account the changing societal trends; need
to look at the issues holistically; to be sensitive to the societies around the
world in which they operate.
Lastly she states Nooyi’s as
a boss:
·
Has very high standard;
·
Holds and helps everyone to reach this high
standards;
·
Very demanding and caring;
·
Someone who works as hard as everyone does;
·
Is there alongside everyone pushing all to be
a better person and a better executive.
After Serving 24 years at
PepsiCo and 12 years as the Chief Executive of the company Indra Nooyi will
step down on October 3, 2018
