Indra Nooyi

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Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi (born October 28, 1955 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) is the president and chief executive officer of PepsiCo, the world's fourth-largest food and beverage company. On August 14, 2006 she was named the next to succeed Steve Reinemund as chief executive officer of the company. Reinemund, 58, retired on October 1, 2006. According to Forbes magazine's 2006 poll, Ms. Nooyi is the fourth most powerful woman in the world. She has been named the #1 Most Powerful Woman in Business in 2006 by Fortune Magazine.[1] A subsequent issue of Forbes named her the 28th most powerful woman and indicated she would take over as Chairwoman on May 2, 2007. It is unclear why she is ranked as both 4th and 28th by the same publication. [2]

1 Early life and career
2 Pepsi executive
3 "Middle finger" analogy controversy
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Early life and career

She received a bachelor's degree from Madras Christian College and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and graduated from the Yale School of Management. Prior to joining PepsiCo, Nooyi started her career with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), from where she moved on to hold senior management positions at Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri.

Nooyi is also a Successor Fellow at Yale Corporation and serves on the board of directors of several organizations, including Motorola, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the International Rescue Committee, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with her husband, Rajkishan, and their two daughters.

[edit] Pepsi executive

While at PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi has played a vital role in starting Tricon, which is currently now known as Yum! Brands Inc. She also took the lead in the acquisition of Tropicana in 1998. Nooyi assumed her role as president and CFO of PepsiCo in May of 2001. She was named on the Wall Street Journal's list of 50 women to watch in 2005. She was ranked #1 on Fortune Magazines list of most powerful women in Business. She joined PepsiCo in 1994 and was named Chief Financial Officer in 2001. On August 14 2006 she was named the CEO of PepsiCo. She becomes the fifth CEO in Pepsico's 41 year history.

[edit] "Middle finger" analogy controversy

In May 2005 Nooyi started a controversy when she spoke to graduates of the Columbia Business School in New York City describing North America and implicitly the United States as "the long middle finger", adding the US "must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand . . . not the finger." An apology was later issued.^[1]^[2]