Indra Nooyi is looked upon as the eleventh most powerful women in US amongst the Fortune fifty most powerful women. She is also ranked No.4 on Forbes magazine’s annual survey of the hundred most powerful women in the world. She is looked upon as one of the most successful NRI Entrepreneurs. One more Indian (born and brought up in India), making it BIG abroad. One more feather in the cap of India.

Indra Nooyi was promoted to position of CEO and chairperson of PepsiCo, the world’s second largest beverages company. She has been bestowed as the India Abroad Person of the Year 2006, on March 23 at a mega event held at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York City.
She is the highest-ranking Indian in Corporate America. She acknowledges the contributions made by her family — her mother, husband and daughter — that enabled her to scale incredible heights in a foreign land. She left India some 29 years ago and thrived her career in America.

Indra Nooyi grew up in Chennai. Her father worked at the State Bank of Hyderabad and her grandfather was a district judge. She did her Bachelors in Science in Chemistry from Madras Christian College. Subsequently she earned a Master’s Degree in Finance and Marketing from IIM Calcutta. Indra Nooyi also holds a Master’s Degree in Public and Private management from the Yale School of Management.
Before her stint with PepsiCo since 1994, Indra Nooyi was Senior Vice President of Strategy and Strategic Marketing for Asea Brown Boveri, and Vice President and Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning at Motorola. She also was with Mettur Beardsell and Johnson & Johnson. The Tricon spin-off, the purchase of Tropicana, the public offering of Pepsi Cola bottling group and the merger with Quaker Foods are some of the companies vital decisions where Indra Nooyi played a crucial role.
Nooyi strongly believes in constant reinvention. For her “the minute you’ve developed a new business model, it’s extinct, because somebody is going to copy it.” She prides in the joys of her sense of belonging to two lands — India for the heritage and America for her future.