Exemplary Leader: Indra Nooyi

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Exemplary Leader: Indra Nooyi

The foundation for developing an effective diversity management program relies on leadership commitment and the CEO should communicate the organization’s position on diversity management and his or her sincere belief in the importance of diversity (Cañas & Sondak, 2010). Indra Nooyi, the current Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, is a leader who demonstrates a strong passion for managing diversity. In this paper I will be discussing Indra Nooyi’s personal and professional background, the status of diversity within PepsiCo before her role as CEO, the leadership philosophy on managing diversity Indra Nooyi has taken, the strategies she has used to implement diversity management, and her diversity related goals. I will conclude with a discussion on the current status of PepsiCo in terms of diversity, their future diversity goals and how Nooyi’s diversity management efforts have affected the overall success of the company as a whole.

What Makes a Leader?

Personal and Professional Background

How a person is raised, their personal experiences, spiritual beliefs and education greatly affect their view on the world, and it is these unique factors that help formulate an individual’s personal leadership abilities. Indra Nooyi was born and raised in Madras, India. She came to the United States in 1978 at age 23 to earn her M.B.A. at Yale, despite her parents telling her she was out of her mind and should have stayed in India and gotten married (Useem, 2008). Nooyi credits her upbringing for instilling her competitive work ethnic that still drives her today. Her parents taught her, “if you do a job, you must do it better than anybody else” (Bullock, 2010, para 5). While in college Nooyi played cricket and electric ...

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...Staying Focused on Best Practices. Black Enterprise, 39(10), 43-44.

MIT Sloan Management. (2006). PepsiCo president charts path to diversity and success: Indra Nooyi speaks to MIT Sloan Community as a part of Dean’s Innovative Leader Series. Retrieved from http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/2006-nooyi.php

PepsiCo. (2012). Indra K. Nooyi Biography. Retrieved from http://www.pepsico.com/Download/Indra_Nooyi_bio.pdf

Sherman, H. (2011). Nooyi, Indra. Britannica Biographies, 1.

The Economist. (2010). Pepsi Gets a Makeover: Taking the Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/15772138

The Pepsi Challenge. (2006). Economist, 380(8491), 51.

Useem, M. (2008). New Ideas for This Pepsi Generation. (cover story). U.S. News & World Report, 145(12), 49.

Walkup, C. (2003). Nooyi speaks on diversity, innovation at WFF luncheon. Nation’s Restaurant News, 37(23), 97.

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