Indra Nooyi

Leadership: Indra Nooyi, Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo

Bridget Larson

MGT 545

Dr. Meier

September 7, 2010

Contents

Background of Leader 2

Followers and situation 3

Contextual Leadership 4

Operational Leadership 4

Leader’s Approach to Motivation 5

Theories/Models 6

Analysis 7

Lesson Learned 7

Works Cited 8

Background of Leader

Indra Nooyi, Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo was born in Madras (Chennai), India on October 28, 1955. She was one of three children in a traditional middle class family, but she was not a typical Indian girl. Instead of learning household chores like other girls her age, she played cricket and was in an all-girl rock band. To this day a karaoke machine is always present at every PepsiCo gathering. Her parents instilled in all of their children the idea that they could do anything they wanted in life as long as they were successful in doing so (Nooyi, Up Close and Personal: Indra Nooyi gets candid, 2007).

Nooyi attended Madras Christian College for her undergraduate degree and continued with a Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, India. Before coming to the United States Nooyi started her career in India as a product manager for several companies including Johnson & Johnson and textile firm, Mettur Beardsell, Ltd. But she had a deep desire to attend school in the United States. She saw an advertisement for Yale’s School of Management, applied, and got accepted.

Nooyi’s biggest surprise came when her parents allowed her to leave India for the United States. She told Sarah Murray of the Financial Times, "It was unheard of for a good, conservative, south Indian Brahmin girl to do this. It would make her an absolutely unmarriageable commodity after that (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2010).” A risk she was willing to take.

Before her career at PepsiCo, she worked for six years at The Boston Consulting Group where she directed international corporate strategy...