In November 2009, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi found herself standing between US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Mr. Obama began the introduction. When he went to her, Dr. Singh said, “Oh! But he is one of us!” Without giving a beat, Mr. Obama replied, “Ah, but he’s also one of us!” In his new book, My whole life: work, family and our future, Ms. Nooyi says she is in both worlds. She writes: “I am still a girl raised in a close family in Madras … I am also the woman who came to America at the age of twenty-three to study and work, and somehow, a prestigious company , a journey that I believe is only possible in America.” An excerpt from the book:
The phone rang again. This time, it was a recruiter asking if I would be interviewing for the position of senior vice president of corporate strategy and planning at PepsiCo, the beverage, snack and restaurant company. The role involved overseeing fifty high-potential executives, new employees who had been in the planning department for eighteen months or so and then joined management jobs throughout the company. Mentoring and training had to be a big part of the job.
I thought twice about going into the consumer business. As much as I knew I could learn anything, after eight years at Motorola and ABB, I was immersed in engineering, technology, and large-scale infrastructure projects. When I heard that PepsiCo also had KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, I wondered if this job was really for me. I do not eat meat. How can I relate to these restaurants?
Soon, both GE and PepsiCo began flooding me with lucrative job offers. I was weighing my options with Raj [Nooyi] and my friend Orit Gadish, President of Bain & Company, as my sounding board. Preeta and Tara were at PepsiCo’s side when we got a huge basket of goodies and T-shirts. Head of Corporate Hiring Ronnie Miller Hasday knew how to capture the interest of the family.
an outsider
I turned to PepsiCo to start my new job on March 30, 1994. When I moved in, white American men held fifteen of the top fifteen jobs at PepsiCo. Almost all wore blue or brown suits with white shirts and silk ties and had short hair. Or no hair. He drank Pepsi, mixed drinks and liqueurs. Most of them played golf, fished, played tennis, went hiking and jogging. Some hunted quail together. Married with many children. I do not believe that any of his wives have worked in paid jobs outside their homes.
I am not detailing these characteristics to focus on these particular men. My coworkers were smart, creative, dedicated people and had tremendous responsibility and stress on their shoulders. He built a beloved enterprise. The fact that PepsiCo’s leadership mirrored nearly every senior-executive suite in corporate America in 1994. Even the most skilled women were still getting into middle management. The number of female CEOs in the five hundred largest companies that year was zero.
When I came on the PepsiCo CEO floor, no one was expected to be a deeply engaged parent, let alone a great mother and wife. Dealing with teachers, doctors, dentists, groceries, clothing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, home decor, gardening, house guests, birthdays, holidays and vacations was not their area. Maybe they are engaged in their children’s emotional health, academic success, and general good behavior – just a little.
Even if they were interested in any of these things, these people still didn’t have time.
Importantly, the men I worked with didn’t judge each other by how their work and family life came together. They were quite competitive, but also cared for and supported each other through crises, including divorce, illness, or troubles with their children.
None of this came to my mind when I met him. I was well aware that I was an outsider: I was still an eighteen-year-old girl at IIM Calcutta; Indian immigrants in polyester suits at Yale; Vegetarian, pregnant mom in La Crosse, Wisconsin. At BCG, I was in several industries, but I never encountered a female clientele.
From 1994 to 1999 I worked and worked and worked. Whatever impact my work life had on my role at home, I still had Raj’s lifeboat. He was now a partner in a consulting firm, working and traveling like crazy, yet a steady source of support. We also had a maid, who drove the car and cooked for us, and a nanny, and they ran the house and kept the kids safe. My mother was spending more time with my sister and brother’s families in New York all these years, although she was always available to help when needed. Raj’s parents also helped whenever we asked him.
Over the years Preeta missed me a lot. She was a teenager, and all she saw was a busy, stressed-out mother. I was loving and present during the difficult times but not really there from day to day. His anger was expressed by verbal outbursts, and I struggled to deal with them.
Tara was a quiet, quiet kid who once wrote me a note, which I still keep in my desk drawer, evoking feelings from all these years. On a large sheet of construction paper adorned with flowers and butterflies, she begs me to come home. The note read, “I’ll love you again if you come home please.” In her lovely, crooked printing, the word please is written seven times.
‘The news can wait…’
I was in my office late Friday night December 1 [2000]MILF When Steve [Reinemund, then CEO of PepsiCo] Called me from Dallas to share the news that I would be named president of PepsiCo and join the board. I was over the moon. I packed up at work right away.
I walked home. It was almost 10 o’clock at night, and the winter roads were quiet and dark. I entered our house through the kitchen door and dropped my keys and bag on the counter. I was filled with excitement – so eager to tell everyone. Then my mother appeared. “I have the most incredible news!” I screamed.
“The news can wait,” she said. “I want you to go out and get milk.” I picked up my keys, got back in the car, went to the Stop & Shop a mile away, and bought a gallon of whole milk. When I went to the kitchen again, I was going crazy. I slammed the plastic bottle on the counter.
“I’ve just become president of PepsiCo, and you can’t stop listening to my news,” I said out loud. “Listen to me,” replied my mother. “Whether you’re the president of PepsiCo or whatever, but when you come home, you’re a wife and a mother and a daughter. No one can take your place. So you leave that crown in the garage.”
Excerpted with permission from Hatchet India
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