My Leader from the Corporate World - Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi - Case Study Example

Name Tutor Course Date My Leader from the Corporate World My leader from the corporate world is Mrs Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi who became the Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo on August 14, 2006 and was named Chairperson a year later. Some of her other known portfolios are: Successor Fellow of the Yale Corporation, a member of the Eisenhower Fellowships’ Board of Trustees, Chairperson of the US – India Business Council, in the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve as a Class B director, a member of the Foundation Board of the International Rescue Committee, World Economic Forum and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Indra was born in Tamil, India where she schooled and worked till 1976 when she enrolled into the Yale School of Management for an MBA (Useem 1). Upon completing her MBA she was hired by Boston Consulting Group where she worked a while before moving on to Motorola then Asea Brown Boveri. Her career in PepsiCo begun in 1994 and she rose to be president and Chief Financial Officer in 2001. Within this period, Nooyi directed PepsiCo’s global strategy which included key acquisitions and mergers that greatly enhanced the corporation’s earnings and market positioning. Under her leadership the company’s annual turnover rose to 72% while net profits doubled to US $5.6 billion in 2006. Indra’s accolades keep on piling up and they include: Fortune magazine’s number one on its yearly grading of the Most Powerful Women in business for four consecutive years (2006 – 2009), U.S. News & World Report 2008 America's Best Leaders, number 3 in 2008 and 2009 on Forbes Magazine’s The World's 100 Most Powerful Women, and 2009 Global Supply Chain Leaders Group CEO of the Year. There are three things that we could have expected to work against Nooyi on her path to the top. Firstly being a woman entails combining her role as a mother, wife and corporate leader. In addition to this she was an immigrant who moved to the US aged 23 (Useem 1) and had to work extra hard to climb the steep American corporate ladder. Finally, issues of color are yet to be fully resolved in the US to date and she is a woman of color. Indra overcame all these barriers to become one of the most influential women in the world today, in business or otherwise. Moreover at PepsiCo, Indra has succeeded a long line of white male CEOs. This is more remarkable when we discover that in its over 40 year history, PepsiCo has only had four CEOs preceding her. Indra is described as a deeply caring person by none other than Steve Reinemund, the immediate former PepsiCo CEO. Reinemund further adds that Nooyi easily relates to staff from the boardroom level to the factory floor, which is a rare trait (Useem 1). But a more vivid manifestation of her leadership communication style is made evident by the events that followed her immediate appointment to be the CEO of PepsiCo. There were only two short listed candidates when Reinemund was leaving office. On the day she received the nod from the board that she had been selected to be the new CEO, Indra immediately flew to where the other contender was vacationing to persuade him to stick with her in the company. She even went further to increase her competitor's remuneration to just about equal to her own when he agreed to be her right-hand man. Nooyi joined PepsiCo as a chief strategist from where she helped executives make some tough decisions such as shedding off fast food businesses (KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) in 1997. She also saw the company’s future in beverages and packaged food which led to the $3 billion acquisition of Tropicana in 1998 and in 2001 the $14 billion takeover of Quaker Oats. These strategic moves demonstrated her transformational leadership ability and capability for prescient choices. These decisions were later backed by soared company earnings which cemented her stature as a singular leader. Indra’s transformational leadership did not stop by her appointment to the role of Chairman and CEO but has only been growing. At present she is pursuing the ambitious and unusual vision for reinventing PepsiCo from a snack food producer to a health foods company. She is being driven by the desire to create a sustainable enterprise in addition to her required mandate to deliver shareholder value. She therefore developed an artistic motto, i.e. performance with purpose. She is a devout Hindu who is not ashamed of her culture and still can be seen wearing Saris to corporate events. The mantra performance with purpose brings out the charismatic approach that Nooyi seeks to inject into the new PepsiCo. She has re-organized the company so as to reduce its previous fixation with the US market alone. She has recruited a former Mayo Clinic endocrinologist to lead the firm’s research and development into the healthy foods future that she hopes to lead it to. She is renowned for singing karaoke during the company functions and her new found celebrity status both within the company and outside have not lessened her passion for singing. Conclusion Corporate leadership in America is at a crossroads. No sooner have the debacles of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and others faded away in our memories than we have fallen into an economic recession that was nurtured by greed and a deficiency of ethics in corporate America. As the world’s economy begins to rise back we discover that the need for corporate leadership has never been greater than at this time. There are too many stories that reflect the lack of integrity in our corporate leaders. Mrs Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is my leader from the corporate world because she has shown that whatever one puts one’s mind to, one can achieve it. Her ambition to go to the US for her academics and then succeed has been fulfilled. She has taken leadership with passion and seeks to convert a profitable big business to more than that. Her big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) is to create a sustainable business. At the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos, Indra suggested to the then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to use corporations such as PepsiCo to actively address some of the major issues facing the world. Work Cited Useem, Michael. “America's Best Leaders: Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo CEO.” U.S. News & World Report. 19 Nov. 2008. 22 Apr. 2010 Read More