Indra Nooyi

Indra Nooyi was born in Chennai (then Madras), India, in 1955, and studied physics, chemistry and mathematics before an early career in Indian textile and consumer goods firms. In 1978 she left for the United States to study for a master's degree at Yale School of Management, arriving with very little money. Needing a suit for job interviews and unable to afford one that fit the American corporate image she had been advised to project, she borrowed money and bought one secondhand, then worked a midnight-shift receptionist job to make ends meet while studying.

She built a career in strategy consulting and corporate planning at Boston Consulting Group, Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri before joining PepsiCo in 1994 as head of corporate strategy. There she pushed through major, sometimes contested decisions, including the 1997 spin-off of the company's restaurant chains and the acquisition of Tropicana and Quaker Oats, reshaping PepsiCo around packaged food and drink rather than fast food.

In 2006 she became chief executive, the first woman and first person born outside the United States to lead the company, a position she held for twelve years. She pushed the company toward healthier products and more sustainable packaging, changes that drew both praise and criticism from investors focused on short-term snack sales.

She has written and spoken widely about balancing an intense corporate career with raising a family, and about the immigrant path that took her from a middle-class Chennai household to one of the largest companies in America.