YouSaid · the spoken record

Indra Nooyi

lines on the record: 121
first: 2025-06-24
most recent: 2025-06-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Performance with purpose. You know, when I ran Pepsi, I ran it on that motto. To me, delivering performance in whatever field is one thing, but you've got to leave the place better than you found it. And you've got to go to the deep sense of I want to make the world a better place. I want to make the company a better company. I want to make the employees feel better about themselves than when they came into PepsiCo or had a different leader. So at every point in time, how do you have a deep sense of purpose to leave the place better than you found it? Those are the three words I used as a CEO of PepsiCo. Those are the three words that continue to guide what I'm doing today. This deep sense of purpose without taking your eye off the core performance you have to deliver.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Unless you don't accompany where only individual contributors move forward because they're all super techy. But in companies where you really have to work in teams to move things forward, I don't see how you can do it all on Zoom.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I grew up at a time when everybody came to work and I loved it. So as we went through COVID and post COVID, I'm struggling to see how I would have run the company without people coming to work. I'm struggling to see how I would have developed people without seeing them. Now, let me come to the other side. I also see the benefit of people who choose to work from home because they can now juggle more responsibilities working from home. So I understand that too. However, I'm also of the belief, Shane, that if you choose to work from home, male or female, I don't care. If you choose to work from home, you might also want to accept that your promotional challenges, maybe your promotional opportunities may be limited.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't even know what it is to work from home only. To me, if we don't come to work, interact with other people, understand the culture of the company, see people in the corridor, toss around ideas, pop your head into a meeting and say, hey, I see you guys are working on this. Can I help? If you don't have that sort of human interaction, I don't even know what it is to work in a corporation as opposed to doing a job from home, doing an assignment from home if you want to call it that.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, Pepsi didn't have too many of these bragging people Some people might have tried to be a bit more out there to take credit, but there were very few people who were braggers, really. Even Amazon has no braggers. I fill observe the other company I said on the border of the MedTech company from the Netherlands. Not at all. Nobody brags. Everybody's talking about what can we do together to move the company forward. So I think I'm just lucky to be in these sorts of companies.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They've got as uncanny ability to zoom in and zoom out? They draw, they ask people for opinions and ideas and incorporate them. They put their hands up for difficult assignments and learn from difficult assignments. They've gone through failure in the past. People who hit it out of the park have been through a lot of failure and learn from that failure. They haven't allowed it to get them down. They've learned from those failures. They picked themselves up, talk about what they learned, fix it the next time and move forward. These are people typically humble. You know, people who hit it out of the park rarely beat their chests and say, I hit it out of the park. I hit it out of the park. Look at me. I got to move forward. These are people who say, hey, this is what the company needed. I did it. and perhaps you had a lot of them.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm going to tell you those mistakes, but yeah, of course. I mean, we correct them, but yeah, we made mistakes. And if the mistakes were made is because I wish we had played out how that market could have evolved even more, or I didn't bring the bottlers in soon enough to talk about how they're going to carry it on that bottling system. Or I put it into Fridole, even though it was a good for you product, and somehow it became a fun for you product when I wasn't looking. So yeah, we made mistakes. The key thing is where it makes a huge difference and big bucks are involved, be careful. Be ultra careful about post major integration in people because the cost of failure is very high.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He said when we are buying Quaker oats, whatever happens, we're going to do everything possible to keep Bob Morrison. At least for the first two years, so the onboarding into Pepsi was done with the way that we respect their culture and they respect us. Maybe a whole lot of difference. So I think acquisitions fail when you don't recognize these pitfalls and don't address them proactively.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Roger said something very interesting to me. He said It's a different company, it's a good for you product Don't allow people from the rest of PepsiCo to go there and put their ideas on a good for you business because you'll mess up that business. So you made me go sit down with Ellen Maram, who was running that business, to say what are the rules under which Tropicana should operate? Almost their value system, and he said, preserve that until this company is mature enough to be called part of PepsiCo. Very important lesson. The second was when we were buying Quaker Roads. It was Bob Morrison was very important to Quaker Roads. He said,”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, the acquisition logic should be correct. Don't do deals just because it's exceed to do a deal or you're trying to buy some short-term growth or profitability. If you do it for the wrong reason, they will not work out. Second, any acquisition, the deal process is just 10% of the whole process. The whole work is in the post merger integration. How do you integrate the acquired company into your company? How do you extract the synergies? How do you build a new culture? How do you absorb them? People don't pay enough attention to that. And when post-merger integration efforts are not done right, acquisitions do fail. And you've got to keep that in mind. And sometimes acquisitions don't work because the people that you put in charge of running the new company are not competent. I think one of the lessons I learned is respect the culture of the company acquired. I'll give you two examples. When we bought Tropicana the days when there were oranges available in Florida,”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've looked at this from every perspective. Go make it happen. If something goes wrong, I got you back. Your people feel empowered.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Many people do it well. Decisions are rarely made in a vacuum. Decisions are made because you've looked at dreams of data, you're married with experience, with a little bit of intuition, a lot of counseling with other people, a lot of discussions, a lot of input from other people too. Don't underestimate how much knowledge is resident in your teams and how you can tap into it. And so I think if you're willing to incorporate all those points of view into decision making, you're going to end up with a great decision. But you've always got to keep one thing in mind. If something goes wrong with the decision you made, the blame is yours. If it goes well, give it to the team that worked on it. Cover for them, provide the air cover, but don't try to take the credit yourself because the more you take the credit yourself, people go, she just wants to look good.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Business was a multi multi billion dollar business. So again, you know people are going to criticize you for flip-flopping. People are going to say you took on a more asset intensive business, but was it right for the company? Gotta put the company before you. They might criticize you, but is it right for the company? The answer is yes.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back at that time in North America, we'd still be fighting with the bottles and the pie would be shrinking because we're not serving the consumer, we're fighting each other. So it was tough, but we bought him back.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, when Roger was CEO, we spun out the bottlers in North America. I executed on his direction. And at that point it was the right thing to do. When I became CEO, I realized that the market was growing, the bottlers were thriving. When the market growth rate slowed down, okay, the pie wasn't growing, but there were two companies, the concentrate company and the bottling company fighting for a larger share of that pie. And it was not constructive. We were not serving the customer, we're now fighting amongst ourselves. I made that hard decision to buy back the bottlers. Now it gets back to strategy. Sometimes people say, oh, you flip-flop. No, the environment changed. Remember I talked to you about you changed strategy, the environment changes. You cannot be dogmatic about your strategic direction. When the environment changes around you, you've got to zag a little bit, which is what I did, bought back the bottlers. Had we not bought the bottlers.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Consumer sees the product on a shelf, that immediate talking to you. So to me, the media you own is very important to the consumer because the media you rent is your TV and your advertising, many people don't see it, but they see that billboard effect on the aisle. So how does your package show up on the shelves? Is the right assortment there? Can they shop it easily? For example, is there a corporate blog called Fridolane or do you have potato chips, corn chips? How would you prefer having it? Are the dips next to the chips? If something is on deal, is it on an end ale? There's so many things we look at. The Fridole guys do a great job.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I look for new products. Have they been slaughtered? Are there existing workhorses like a lays or doritos got enough facings so the consumer knows that they should grab it? Is each package neatly crisped and put on the shelf? Because that's the media you own, right?”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll give you an example. Friedo Lech will turn 40, 50 times a year. Beverages might turn 60 to 70 times a year. Toothpaste turns 12 times a year. Cookies turn ten times a year. So, you know, those people, those can come to the warehouse. But chips, milk, beverages, very hard to bring it through the warehouse.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because velocity is so high and it's all air in the bags, right? So if you put it through the warehouse, it'll take up too much space in the warehouse. So we bring it in through the art trucks and our salesmen know how to put the right skus in the right place on the shelf. If Frito Lay products and beverage products came through the warehouse, they would have to build separate buildings just to house those products.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you know, you learn so much and say, guys, hang on. When you go back and you look at pricing architecture, you ask people these questions. How many of these cues did you put on off Quaker Oaths? Why do we need 10 cues? Why not four? It'll simplify the manufacturing operations.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And even if the consumer didn't express their confusion, they were probably confused because we were confused at that time looking at the four packages. But he would look at it at that granular level”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“twelve packs, six packs, whatever. But the pricing doesn't reflect the changes. You know why is that? And why do I need four different packs? Why don't I just have two? I'm don't have the reason. But, you know, he's thinking about how can I get the maximum inventory on these shelves that makes sense for the consumer, but have price transparency for the consumer is served well. And basically what he was pointing out to me is my pricing architecture was messed up.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He goes down there, then he look at his team and say, What have you done wrong? And sometimes the guy will have the right answers, sometimes they won't. You got a merchandise it dark to light. Or he stands in front of a frido-lay aisle and he'll say to the guys, what do you think about this isle? All right. And they'll say it's perfect. He'll say, why isn't every isle like the Friedo Leisle? Because Pepsi goes merchandised just perfectly. Or the best example I remember stood in front of a Quaker Road Isle. He'll pull out four packages of multipacks, you know, all the different flavors of he'll put all four packs and he'll look at me. Andra, come here and say, yes, Greg. I said, awesome, lineup, because in my products, right? I own Quaker Roads. He'll say, each of these boxes, they're three different sizes, but each of these boxes has got nine packs.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How they merchandise t shirts is dark delight, you know, when you hang, let's say you're hanging a certain t-shirt, but you've got to make sure the colors go from dark to light. If you mix up all the colors, consumers have a difficulty shopping for a t-shirt.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me tell you what I think you should have taken away. Greg Downron say in New Zealand, I was in New Zealand a year ago with him. We were reflecting on our market experiences. He taught me more than I would have learned from anybody. But this is the advantage of being open to ideas, open to learning, and you can learn a lot from CEOs and become a better person yourself, because at the end of the day, a company does not exist in a vacuum.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“stood trail grape for to see how he looked at every isle, how he looked at how clothing should be merchandised, what product was married with what? Where did he stop and say redo this entire display for the consumer? So I was learning from Greg Forerun, but he allowed me to tail him. Okay, and so I felt it was a gift he gave me and at lunchtime he would only take a half an hour break. He said, Dan said, Tell me what you learned.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought this product would do very well. But he listened. You see that? You see how you feel about the fact that the CEO wasn't just teaching, he's also learning from you. And so I had experiences like that. I remember there was a Walmart senior executive, Greg Foran, who was running North America Walmart. And he was in Kiwi, and he was turning around Walmart, North America. People thought it was very difficult. And I went to meet him. And Doug McPillen, the CEO, told Greg For, and hey, Indra is a good friend of mine. And Greg Forand said, well, if you really want to learn Walmart, follow me on a store tour. And, you know, these guys go to a store every day, some region. So Greg would say, I'm going to be in Pittsburgh from eight AM to six PM on the twenty third of March. So I'd fly to Pittsburgh and meet him there.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have an idea? I said yeah, I gave him an idea. I'm not going to tell you what it was. I gave him an idea. And I thought, you know, in six months it'll show up on the shelf. Two weeks later, I go to the Costco, it's there. How he got it done in two weeks, I don't know, but it was a huge cellar, so I felt relieved. But based on the draw of that consumer in that neighborhood.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Package sizes, how they think about packaging sizes, how they think about treasure hunt. Because in Costco there's always something new, how they think about the treasure hunt alley, how they think about pricing architecture. It's like Costco would have a unique packaging configuration, which was not really comparable to anything out there in the marketplace and why that was important for Costco. What is their thinking about how to manage the budget of a family, especially a family with two or three kids? How do you think about that budget? So, for example, we stood at a refrigerated shelf. I remember in Portchester the store, he and I walked in, he said, okay, Indra, you get to pick a product that I should put into the store.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he said to me if you wanted a better at Costco, walk the store with me. Come to a store opening, spend the whole day, because he goes to every store opening, walk the store with me. Amazing human being Jim Senegal, just I mean heart of gold that he gave me a day walked the store with me, taught me how club stores operate, taught me the basics of the business. This is CEO to CEO. He taught me the basics of the business. And in that store everybody watches him Jim Senegal and me, being great friends, but I'm the student, he's the teacher. And he taught me the business.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the things you should do as a CEO, talk to other CEOs. If you see something interesting they're doing, you're in such a rare club, the CEO club. Call them up and say, hey, you've done this, it's so interesting. Can you share some findings with me? Can you share some results with me? Or I'll give you one example. We used to do business with club stores like Costco and people like that. Very different businesses than a regular retail store, item merchandisers, Costco only merchandises so many skews, limited number of skews. They're all in a different packaging than most other retailers. You know, I said they're going I don't understand Costco enough. My salesman told me about Costco, but I didn't understand Costco enough. So I called Jim Senegal, who was at that time the founder and still running Costco. I said, Jim, I want to do better at Costco. I'm seeing you.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if there were 10 steps, we worried about three steps in the past, about 30%. Now we started to worry about 80, 90%. So it was a different experience. It was fulfilling. People loved it.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, all of a sudden people are saying, God, we can do so much for design, we can change our innovation process, we can change our package, our product design. We started to move from what's the color of the package on the shelf to how is this product going to be consumed, how is it going to be used, how is it going to be carried, how is it going to be stored in the shelf, how is it going to be stored in the pantry at home. We were thinking about the chain, the use chain, all the way to how does a consumer shop for it, put it in the pantry at home, and then take it out and eat it and carry it in the purse. We were thinking about every touch point of the product until it got into the mouth and was consumed. So it expanded the entire chain which goes into the thinking.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But there's one big lesson. When you're in such positions of leadership and you have passion about something, don't try to take the credit. If the team does a great job at the end of it, even though you are the program manager and you drove it, give the credit to the team because you couldn't have done it yourself. The team did it. Just that you exercise the power of your office to help them get there. So the credit should go to them. Make sure you give them the credit. When if something goes wrong, take the blame. But blame flows upwards, credit should flow downwards.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was, and I told them no need for pre-discussions before you come to me. I'm the program manager, and so people sort of realized that I was passionate about launching this product. And so they went along with the program, and they were grateful. I removed every barrier, told them that, okay, this is what's holding you back. Let me make a few phone calls and see if I can't get this out of this company faster. So I jump through hoops for them.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When they bring me something, I didn't like, I'd say hate it. Absolutely hate it. And then I would tell a joke about it and say, this is what the customer is going to say when they see it. Or I'd say something like, this new product is delayed. I don't care in six months we have to launch it, even though normally it takes three years to do it. And guess what? I'm the program manager, so we're going to meet every Friday morning to talk about this program. People go, you're the program manager. I said, yeah, I'm the program manager. And people go, this is a disaster because to have a CEO review every week means we have to have two other reviews before we come to see you. I said, no, I'm the program manager. I'm not the CEO, I'm the program manager.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Destroy the place. He was doing it because he cared so much about Apple that he wanted the absolute brilliant right campaign for Apple. And his way of showing his frustration at himself and at the group was to act the way he did. Now, as a woman, I'm not the kind that Attos full letter words and throws things around, but all that Steve Job was telling me was people have got to know what you're really passionate about. When you're really passionate about something, don't sit here going God, I don't want to send them back three times. It's okay to send them back three times. Get it to a point where you really comfortable, this is going to be good for the company. Show your passion. Push people back. So I got to a point when design as a discipline was set up in PepsiCo.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he taught me a valuable. First of all, it gave me time, which was just so generous of him. I think the biggest lesson I took away was he said If you care about something and you should care about a few things, show your passion. For example, the guy who ran TBWHI, the ad agency, which was doing work for Apple, would always say, when you go to see Steve Jobs in the campaign, if you didn't like it, he'd throw the stuff all over the room and say, I want to see a new campaign by the morning and you scream, utter profanities, do whatever. But he wasn't doing it to”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would call out bad behavior immediately when I saw it. But in a gentle way, I'd say, hey, can you let her finish? Stop interrupting her or him, it could be a hymn too. What I would say don't roll your eyes when they're talking under something's wrong with your eyes. Okay, so but I do it in a way that didn't make them feel bad, but it was direct and pointed.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nothing. And then believe me, I don't know what conversation he had with those people. Everything was night and day after that. We never talked about it.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't even say that. I said, you know, look, you've been watching this bad behavior and you've said nothing. So I'm going to make this presentation tomorrow to the board. After that, I quit. He didn't say anything. And then that day, the meeting with all the presidents that was supposed to happen, where I would always get beaten up, didn't happen. He called off that meeting and said he brought in the people who Tough on me, and I think he had a chat with them. And then the next day morning he walked into my office and said, Say, you know, next week we're going on this trip to look at these operations and these operations. Just make sure. He didn't even tell me I hope you've changed your mind. He just assumed.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't quite remember, I just threatened to quit. I said, I'm, oh, yeah, I just said after this meeting I'm leaving tomorrow.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have to stop it at that time and say, let's not just leave this discussion, let's really have a conversation about this because maybe it's true, maybe it's not. And sometimes it used to be issues related to her style or the way she dressed or how she showed emotion or how she gesticulated too much. Only because again I'm not criticizing. The original idea of the executive was a certain kind of male. And now these women show up in these C-suites, and it's a different gender behavior, everything. People have to get used to it. So you need more examples of people in C-suites. And then you say, okay, look, each person behaves differently, but they all bring a richness to the dialogue.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So performance appraisals for men is like you know he didn't deliver on all his goals yeah I agree but the guy's got really he's got great potential With the women it was she delivered on all her goals, but I think, you know, her future trajectory is not that great. Why not? Well, I don't know, something about her tells me that she won't be successful. Sometimes it was just ineffable, not with all people, but some of the people. That's how the dialogue would go.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So you've got to look at all these numbers and say, let me ask the question about what is it about my company? Especially if you're a consumer company, you go, boy, they should really want to come here. What are we doing wrong? You've got to get introspective yourself.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Opportunity environment constantly monitoring it, making sure we don't slip back to old bad habits, and making sure we have the numbers. Usually when you're one or two diverse people in the organization, you can't really practice how to be inclusive. And then you have to constantly check yourself and say if sixty percent of the suma cum lauders from that college were women, where am I summakum louders? Why aren't they in this company? Okay, so you've got to ask yourself those simple questions based on the statistics coming out of all the graduating classes. Because if 55% of the graduating class are women. fifty five percent of the sumacum laudas and magna cum laudas are women. And even in stem disciplines of its more than fifty percent, and if you only have twenty percent of the highers are women, why aren't they coming to you?”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Metatocracy bring them all in, allow them all to thrive, then everybody has a confidence to continue to contribute. But if you have all these unconscious biases that impact people who are different, then they lose their confidence. Once you lose your confidence, you no longer feel comfortable, so your competences impact because you're questioning yourself, am I good enough? Can I do this? So I think the whole idea of meritocracy is thinking about all talent is equal. as opposed to one talent is more important than the others.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So if a woman is presenting and you roll your eyes at her, or when she's presenting a cutter off, or she says something and you cut her off, or I've seen this often, somebody will say, oh yeah, this is so theoretical when a woman presents. Man says the same thing. They'll say, oh God, that's so brilliant. So these things happen as a matter of practice in companies, women, people of color when they present, they do go through some bad behavior. I'm talking of then. Things have changed a lot now, but in those days it did happen. And so when those things happen, you've got to figure out a way to call those people out right there and say, hey, can you let her finish? Can you let this person articulate their point of view before you cut them off? Will you stop rolling your eyes when she's presenting? Because you can feel the person rolling their eyes. So if you really value every talent for what it is.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if you decide that you want to have a meritocracy in the company, you should draw from the entire talent pool. When you have more than 50% of the graduates are women, women are getting all the top grades. They're hungry. They want to move ahead. And then you don't hire from that pool because you start off saying, oh, she's a woman, must not be very good. You have these biases, that's a problem. So you've constantly got to check your biases at the door and say If I had to put on blindfold and hire people, how do I make sure that I draw from the best and the brightest? That's what consulting does, okay? So you draw from the best in the brightest. And then while they're in the company moving ahead, make sure that barriers that exist to their success are removed. Because once you attack somebody's confidence, it attacks their competence.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you're at ten percent, it's not really progress because fifty percent of the MBA graduates are women. Okay, so somewhere that pipeline is leaky. But, you know, it's a journey because you've got to make so many trade-offs. Why did you get to the top? But it was novel at the time I became CEO, the first immigrant person of color from an emerging market to lead a Fortune 50, iconic American company. It might have made a lot of news, but deep down inside, I'm like, God, I better prove myself. Okay, I lived off of that fear of making sure that I did my job right and didn't let any of these constituencies down to the outside world was big news.”
2025-06-24 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source