The secret of building a successful career, according to Indra Nooyi

Indra Nooyi worked at PepsiCo for 24 years, 12 of them as CEO, before stepping down in 2018. (Illustration by Suneesh K)

Indra Nooyi, former PepsiCo CEO, is one of the most powerful business leaders in the world. She is one of the two Indian-origin women to become a global CEO, the second being Chanel’s new boss Leena Nair.

Nooyi, 66, has been vocal about her personal and professional journey, and about the challenges of rising up the corporate ladder as an immigrant woman in the United States.

All through her career, she has gone back one particular skill whenever she faced a complex issue or a situation. And that is, simplify it and look at it from the point of view of a student.

“If I go back through my entire career, anywhere where things were too complex, it always came to me. ‘Indra, you simplify it first. You tell us how to navigate through this extremely complex problem.’ That was my skill then. It is today,” Indra Nooyi had shared on LinkedIn’s Career Advice series in 2016.

“Why can I do that? Somebody gives me a complex problem I become a student. I don't care that I'm CEO, or president, or CFO. I become a student,” she said.

Nooyi worked at PepsiCo for 24 years, 12 of them as CEO, before stepping down in 2018. . While she was CEO, PepsiCo's revenues grew from $35 billion to $63.5 billion and she became known for promoting such good for you snacks as Baked Lays potato chips and Naked juices made of fruits and vegetables.

In her memoir that was released last year, she writes about her childhood in India, her experiences as an immigrant at Yale University's business school and how she became the rare woman and person of colour to reach the highest levels of corporate power.

The mother of two children, she also spoke candidly while at PepsiCo of the difficulties in balancing commitments.

Her interview with the New York Times Magazine had created quite a buzz with her receiving a fair among of backlash on the internet. In the interview, Nooyi has said that she has never, ever, ever asked for a raise as she found it “cringeworthy and cannot imagine working for somebody and saying my pay is not enough”.