The Hindu Business Line : Strategist par excellence

Indra represents the best of the East and the West; she understands business in the developed world as well as the developing world and can interpret the investors' needs as well as the environment where investment flows.

INDRA NOOYI, soon to be CEO of PepsiCo Inc

Indra is an amazing person, a manager with a presence which is quite a unique blend of the very best. She is a visionary strategist, tough, outspoken, demanding, uncompromising; at the same time a very warm, kind, affectionate and caring individual. She is tenacious, will pursue her goal till she achieves it, focusing on the long term while always adding value to the short-term tactics. She is full of life, fun-loving, radiates vitality, and is a great singer. She has varied taste, from sports to Western to classical Indian music to arts and is a voracious reader.

I met Indra when she first joined PepsiCo in 1994, having been persuaded to move from ABB by the then CEO of PepsiCo, Wayne Callaway. She instantly made her presence felt as Senior Vice-President-Strategy. She worked very closely with an imaginative and bold leader, Roger Enrico, who succeeded Wayne Callaway. Don Kendall, the founder CEO of PepsiCo, who merged Pepsicola and FritoLay, has enormous regard for Indra.

She was deeply involved in restructuring of PepsiCo, along with Roger, hiving off the restaurant business (Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and a few other smaller chains); forming a new company Pepsi Bottling Group, consisting of all the company-owned bottling operations in the US and Europe, and having it separately quoted on the stock market; negotiating to buy Tropicana, the largest juice company in the US, and Quaker Oats, besides several snack food companies in the UK and Europe.

She is a strategist par excellence. Indra represents the best of both - the East and the West; she understands business in the developed world as well as the developing world and can interpret the investors' needs as well as the environment where investment flows.

She is a deeply religious person, visits Tirupati and other temples in the South almost every year. She is also very devoted to her family, her wonderful husband Raj, who is her anchor and great support, and her two lovely daughters. She is also a true friend and I am very fortunate to have her as a good friend who has stood by me, particularly when I lost my wife last year - she was a dear friend of hers as well.

I regard the humility of Indra as her greatest asset; she clearly recognises the contributions that her four predecessor CEOs of PepsiCo - Don Kendall, Wayne Callaway, Roger Enrico and Steve Reinemund have made, always underplaying her own contribution to PepsiCo. Indra will definitely make PepsiCo one of the two largest global foods companies.

More Stories on : People | Strategy | Restructuring | Beverages

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Saving face

An issue of premium

John and Jane and strategy mutation

Youth icons of today

Marketing movie brands

The Google trail

Strategist par excellence

Marketing is all about spreading ideas