30 Lesser Known Facts About Indra Nooyi You Probably Didn't Know

26 February 2019, 8:10 pm EST By Ruby Karnick

Indra Nooyi, the current chairman of PepsiCo, served as the CEO of the company for 13 years from 2006 to 2019. She has been on the list of most powerful women in the world by several magazines since the year 2010. Here are some interesting facts about the Indian American Tamil business executive:

She is the first independent female director of the International Cricket Council to join the ICC Board in June 2018.
Nooyi is the first woman to have a deanship endowed in her honor at a top business school, with her alma mater Yale School of Management honoring her for her gift of an undisclosed amount, becoming the school's biggest alumni donor.
She was elected chairwoman of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) in January 2008, leading USIBC's Board of Directors, an assembly of more than 60 senior executives representing a cross-section of American industry.
The same year, she was elected to the Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, while also being named as one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report.
She was named as the Most Powerful Women in business by Fortune magazine in its annual ranking list for five consecutive years from 2006 to 2010.
She was honored with the Padma Bhushan by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on December 14, 2013. The same year, she was named as one among the "25 Greatest Global Living Legends" by NDTV.
She was considered as one among the "The TopGun CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency, as well as the CEO of the Year by Global Supply Chain Leaders Group in the year 2009.
From 2008 to 2011, she was ranked in the Institutional Investor's Best CEOs list in the All-America Executive Team Survey.
She has been constantly named in "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" list by the Forbes magazine since the year 2008.
In the year 2018, her last year as the CEO of PepsiCo, she was named as one among the "Best CEOs In The World" by the CEOWORLD magazine.

Indra Krishnamoorthy was born on October 28, 1955, in Madras, now known by the name of Chennai, India, to parents Krishnamurthy and Shantha Krishnamoorthy.
Her father was working as a bank official. She also has a sister named Chandrika Krishnamoorthy Tandon, who is currently the chairperson of Tandon Capital Associates.
She attended the Holy Angels Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in T. Nagar, Chennai, before graduating with a bachelor's degree in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics from Madras Christian College of the University of Madras in the year 1974.
She received her Post Graduate Programme Diploma from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in 1976, and was later admitted to the Yale School of Management for her master's degree in Public and Private Management in the year 1980.
She, even at her young age, is said to have possessed a rebellious streak, and was known among her friends to be "wild," though she was brought up in a conservative middle-class family.
During her time at the Holy Angels Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, she was the lead guitarist of an all girls' music band. She has a great passion for cricket, and was a member of an all-girls' cricket team at her school.
She started her career with Tootal, a British textile company, before moving on to Johnson & Johnson as a product manager, where she was responsible for managing the introduction of Stayfree sanitary napkins to India.
In the initial days of her career, she reportedly worked in the graveyard shift as a dorm receptionist just because she could earn an extra 50 cents.
Stayfree was facing difficulties in marketing, due to the advertising ban in the promoting feminine hygiene products. As a result, she introduced the products directly to young women and students at schools and colleges.
Following her graduation from Yale School of Management, she joined the Boston Consulting Group as a director of international corporate strategy projects, a position that she held for six years.

She married Raj K. Nooyi, president at AmSoft Systems, in the year 1981. The couple have two daughters - Tara Nooyi and Preetha Nooyi, and the family currently resides in Greenwich, Connecticut.
She was appointed as the senior executive in the automotive division development team of Motorola in the year 1986, and was quickly promoted to the position of vice president and director of corporate strategy and planning within a span of two years.
In the year 1990, she became the senior vice president and director of corporate strategy and strategic marketing at Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), where she had to integrate a group of around 15 diverse businesses into a cohesive operation.
Within years, her great success ay ABB, paved way to offers from world's largest companies like General Electric and PepsiCo, as both the companies offered her executive level positions, and she joined PepsiCo as the senior vice president of corporate strategy and development in the year 1994.
Since Nooyi became the Chief Financial Officer and the President of PepsiCo in 2001, the company's net profit rose from $2.7 billion to $6.5 billion. She became the fifth CEO in the 44-years history of the company in the year 2006, following the retirement of CEO Steve Reinemund.
As the CEO of the company, she led the major acquisition of Tropicana and the merger with Quaker Oats Company, which till date are considered to be highly profitable to the company.
She is said to have played an instrumental role in the extensive expansion of the company and the reclassification of the products into three categories: "fun for you," "better for you," and "good for you."
After twelve years at the helm, she stepped down as the CEO, paving way to Ramon Laguarta to replace her on October 3, 2018, while still serving as the chairman of the company.
Nooyi serves as a member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, International Rescue Committee, Catalyst, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She also serves as an Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project.
Her tenure for 12 years, is reportedly 7 years longer than the average CEO tenure at large companies according to an Equilar study. And in her tenure, PepsiCo's sales reported to have seen an increase by 80 percent.