Not preaching, suggesting, recommending, says Indra Nooyi on never asked for raise comment

Her comments drew flak on social media with netizens comparing Nooyi’s high pay as a CEO with an average worker. Some also wondered how Nooyi might have responded in a scenario where one of her former employees had asked for a raise.

However, Nooyi responded saying that she might have been taken out of context. Clarifying her statement, Nooyi told Fortune: “I was speaking the truth about my cultural upbringing and why it stopped me from asking for certain things. I talk about the immigrant’s fear. I’ve been honest about talking about myself. This is part of that whole package.”

Nooyi, 65, who helmed the beverage giant PepsiCo for 12 years and stepped down as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in 2018, has published a memoir My Life in Full'. Born in Chennai, she graduated from the Madras Christian College and studied management at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta before moving to Yale University in the US for a master's degree.

“I wish we were not that way. I wish we had the courage to go ask for it,” adding that since they didn’t come from much, “whatever we had we thought was a lot.”

“You can't take the cultural upbringing out of me. This was unique to me. This is not what I’m preaching at all, not what I'm suggesting, not what I'm recommending,” she told the publication.