'Women’s Day can't be another note on calendar': Indra Nooyi

Women's Day: Indra Nooyi has often spoken about the challenges of rising up the corporate ladder as an immigrant woman in the US.

International Women’s Day cannot be another note on the calendar that drifts by, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said on Tuesday as she recalled the first women’s day speech she gave after taking over the top role at the American multinational.

In a newsletter, Nooyi said she can pretty much lift her speech from March 8, 2007 and give it again in 2022, with most of the issues she mentioned 15 years ago remaining the same even now.

It was March 2007, just a few months after she stepped up as the CEO of PepsiCo, when she delivered the women’s day speech at the Phoenix Convention Center. Indra Nooyi recalled standing at the lectern in a ballroom packed with round luncheon tables.

The audience, she said, was eager to hear from the first woman to run a Fortune 50 company.

“I talked about girls’ education, women’s financial freedom, the crawl to female leadership in politics and business, the ill-fitting suit I wore to my first American job interview and my super-supportive spouse. I quoted Maya Angelou,” she said.

“I mentioned the scourge of domestic violence and the absence of high-quality, affordable childcare which, I said, ‘can mean the difference between a good career and a miserable working life for mothers.’”

Nooyi said Women’s Day is an opportunity for corporate leaders to assess whether they are supporting the best people.

When Nooyi became PepsiCo CEO in 2006, she was one of the just 11 CEOs in the Fortune 500. Now there are 41, she said.

She also spoke about the responses she received on her memoir, “My Life In Full”, published last year.

“My CEO peers were almost all men, and a few have sent me generous emails about what they learned from my experience as the first immigrant woman of colour in their midst. Others are grateful for the insight into my guiding business philosophy of ‘Performance with Purpose’.”

“But most of them enthuse that they got the book — and tell me they passed it on to their wives and daughters, with no hint that it might be interesting to them, too.”

Nooyi, one of the most powerful business leaders in the world, has often spoken about her personal and professional journey, and about the challenges of rising up the corporate ladder as an immigrant woman in the United States.

The 66-year-old is one of the two Indian-origin women to become a global CEO, the second being Chanel’s new boss Leena Nair.

She 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.