PepsiCo did not have a woman in the senior ranks, nor a foreign-born person who was willing to think differently.
Women helping each other – coaching, mentoring, and providing tips – is a great way for us to be our own force.
But the good news was that my elder sister refused to get married straight away and I couldn’t get married until she did so I had the licence to go off and dream.
Most importantly, we want to create a company where every employee can bring their whole selves to work.
Blogging is a great way to provide tips and advice to each other.
When you assume negative intent, youre angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response.
Most companies target women as end users, but few are effectively utilizing female employees when it comes to innovating for female consumers. When women are empowered in the design and innovation process, the likelihood of success in the marketplace improves by 144%!
My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent.
Listen to me,” my mother replied. “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.
My childhood was not a world of “Great job!” It was more like “That was so-so” or “Is this the best you can do?” We were accustomed to honesty, not false encouragement.
Good business demands tough decisions based on rigorous analysis and unwavering follow-through. Emotion can’t really play a part. The challenge we all face as leaders is to let the feelings churn inside you but then to present a calm exterior, and I learned to do that.
I was involved in hundreds of projects with tight deadlines that probably could have stretched into a few more days. Would that have made a difference to the project? Most of the time, no. Would that have made a difference to my colleagues’ lives at home, as caregivers or as members of their community? I think the answer is a resounding yes.
Mothers and fathers have an extra set of hands when they need them, and children and grandparents connect, building the kind of deep and lasting relationships that I had with Thatha and that Preetha has with my mother and Raj’s parents.
I’ve just become president of PepsiCo, and you couldn’t just stop and listen to my news,” I said, loudly. “You just wanted me to go get the milk!” “Listen to me,” my mother replied. “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.
The challenge of the leader is looking around the corner and making the change before it’s too late to make the change.
Topics were explored in depth; pros and cons debated. I’d never been part of anything like it.
By 1994, PepsiCo was the fifteenth-biggest US company, with annual revenue of $25 billion. It sold drinks and food in more than 150 countries and employed 450,000 people.
Roger wrote a book called The Other Guy Blinked, declaring victory in the cola wars.
When I had the honor of being included in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in 2019, I sat for a painting with four objects on a shelf behind me in the composition: a photo of my parents; a photo of Raj, Preetha, and Tara; a Yale SOM baseball cap; and a PepsiCo annual report with the words “Performance with Purpose” on the cover.
My department was always going to be a sounding board, but our recommendations might take years to implement.
Most significantly, this event made real my father’s urging for me, as a woman, to always have the means to provide for myself.