‘I would never have been CEO in any other country, including in India’: Indra Nooyi

The meritocratic system in the US allowed an immigrant to become the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world, said former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi. She said in no other country such a thing would have happened, including in India, where she was born and raised before she moved to the US. 

Nooyi, speaking to Condoleezza Rice for the Hoover Institution, said that she tells her daughters all the time that they do not have any idea how lucky they are to be born in the “greatest country in the world” in reference to the US.  

“This is where an immigrant could come in with nothing in her pocket and become the CEO of an iconic American red, white and blue company. It can't happen in any other country in the world. I would never have been CEO in any other country of the world including in India. So I look at them and I say look at what I could achieve here. It's because the system is a meritocratic system,” she told Rice.

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Nooyi said the mentors in the US do not care if a person is male or female or what ethnicity or gender they are. “They just want the best brains to rise to the top. So you guys should be happy that you're in this country and you've got to do everything possible to maintain the spirit of this country because ultimately the future generations instead of criticizing what's not working, go fix it and keep this country great because there isn't another one like this anywhere in the world,” said Nooyi.

She said she holds that opinion of the US “with all sincerity”, adding that she is genuinely grateful to the US. “I came as a guest and the US welcomed me with open arms. So I'm genuinely grateful,” said the former PepsiCo chief.

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Nooyi said all big technological innovations might have happened in the other countries but they were commercialised in the US. “Technology developed doesn't make any difference. It's when you commercialize it and make a difference in the world is where it really where the rubber hits the road,” she said, talking about the kind of examples she gives her daughters.

She said she would be “nobody” without her mentors and the institutions she was a part of. “My mentors believed in me even more than I believed in myself. They would give me impossible assignments to do just to prove to the world that I was worth mentoring. They would lift me up at points when I thought I could never be lifted up. And I must say all my mentors were white men,” said Nooyi.