Meet woman, IIM graduate, who used to earn Rs 200 crore, top US company wanted to hire her, her net worth is Rs...

Indra Nooyi is a global name now who has earned a reputation of one of the prominent Indian woman CEOs on global level. She has led many foreign companies to financial success and had a huge breakthrough in the business and marketing industry. However, she acquired this ability and skill over many years which is credited to her early life when she was a rebel, a brilliant student and made unconventional choices. Indra Nooyi comes from an educated middle-class family which is also a defining factor in her life.  

Indra Nooyi’s early life 

Indra Nooyi was born on 28,October, ‘1955 in the then Madras, now Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu. Her father was an official in the State Bank of Hyderabad. She completed her bachelor’s degrees in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics in 1976 from Madaras Christian College. She then enrolled in the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in 1976 for post graduate diploma from. In 1978, Nooyi was admitted to Yale School of Management, US to earn a master's degree in public and private management. 

As a young girl, Nooyi was a rebel and in a conventional society which restricted girls she was woman of her own choices with interests in cricket and playing guitar in an all girl’s rock band.  Her family was not a conventional orthodox and so allowed her to study and work abroad.  

Indra Nooyi’s career 

She started working in India right after her studies. She worked as a business strategist for the British textile firm Tootal. She became product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson, where she held the responsibility to market Stayfree, a menstrual hygiene sanitary product, and textile firm Mettur Beardsell. She then spent six years leading international corporate strategy projects at The Boston Consulting Group. 

In 1986, Indra Nooyi worked for Motorola as Vice President and Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning until 1990. She then shifted to another foreign company, Zurich-based Asea Brown Boveri where she worked as Senior Vice President of Strategy, Planning and Strategic Marketing for four years. Her biggest stint was in PepsoCo which she joined in 1994. PepsiCo’s Wayne Calloway wanted to hire her as he said that “We need somebody like you” and found a high potential in her.  

Before becoming the CEO in 2006, Nooyi served as PepsiCo’s president and chief financial officer and was a member of the company’s board of directors. In an interview once, she said, “I’ve never, ever, ever asked for a raise,” as she found it “cringeworthy”. Her last salary as PepsiCo CEO was Rs 2,65,26,39,000. She left the company in 2019 and came on the board of directors for Amazon.