In an interview filled with anecdotes of her childhood, her school days and her career, the former CEO and chairperson of Pepsico has said that for her mother, she was never the high-flying CEO of one of the US’s top companies but a mother, daughter and wife with duties to perform at home. On the day she became president of Pepsico in December 2000, Indra Nooyi returned home bursting to share her success with her family, only to get the following response from her mother: “You may be the president or whatever of Pepsico, but when you come home, you are a wife and a mother and a daughter. Nobody can take your place. So you leave that crown in the garage.” Before she even got a chance to tell the family her good news, she was sent out by her mother to buy milk.In an interview to The Wire to mark the launch of her autobiography My Life in Full, Nooyi has recounted a multitude of stories about the middle-class family she was born into in Madras in 1955, her childhood, the school band she was part of, her early years working in Johnson & Johnson and selling sanitary pads, how she met and married Raj Nooyi, what made her join Pepsico, the early difficult years when she, in fact, resigned and, finally, what it was like to head one of the US’s most important companies for 13 years. Nooyi also talks about how her husband, Raj, often put her career ahead of his and how her daughters, Preetha and Tara, lost something of their mother as she climbed the corporate ladder to the very top. She said she has struggled to ensure that she is always a good wife and caring mother but working flat out, for whichever company she was employed by, was a part of her character which she could not change.Nooyi spoke about her childhood as part of a large joint family in Madras in the late ’50s and early ’60s, her grandfather, who she calls Thatha, and who was perhaps the most important person in her childhood, and her mother, who helped her discover a talent for public speaking and debating.She also talked about her early years with Johnson & Johnson, when she sold Stayfree sanitary pads and would ask “dozens of women in the office and their acquaintances to use a pad and then leave it in the bathroom” so she could “see how it crumpled or leaked”.A significant section of the interview is devoted to Pepsico. It begins with how she got the offer to join through a head-hunter but was not enthused when she discovered Pepsico owned KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.She describes her early years in Pepsico where “white American men hold 15 of the top 15 posts”. She was clearly the odd one out. She also talks about the early years which were not easy and, in fact, in 1996, two and a half years after she joined, she resigned. She explains why and also what made her change her mind and stay on.However, once she settled-in there was no looking back. Four years later, in December 2000, she became president of Pepsico. That was the night her mother told her to leave her crown in the garage. Six years after that she became CEO and chairperson, a position she held for the next 13 years.
