She’s Strategic: Lessons from Indra Nooyi, former PepsiCo Chairman & CEO
I recently had the privilege of attending a Women in Leadership event at AWS re:Invent where Indra Nooyi, former PepsiCo Chairman & CEO, was the guest speaker. As the first woman of color and immigrant to lead a Fortune 50 company, she is nothing short of extraordinary. Buy her book, which launches her moonshot: To build a world where it’s easier to blend our work and home lives.
In a previous article, I’ve explored a key bias that holds women back: the belief that they are more tactical than strategic. Too often, women excel at execution and get overloaded with work, leaving little time for strategic thinking. This cycle sidelines them from leadership opportunities — a pattern I call “SNS Disease” (She’s Not Strategic).
Indra Nooyi is the embodiment of strategy, discipline, and communication excellence. She also understands the barriers women face and how to counteract them. Her talk left me more inspired than I’ve been in years. I have been separately thinking about writing an article ‘Feminism needs a rebrand’ and decided this article is one and the same. Indra IS the feminism rebrand. The realistic revolution. The pragmatic path to greater equality. And I feel a responsibility to pay these lessons forward!
Here are nine cold, hard truths she shared about leading as a woman — and I’m recapping all 9 here if you’re short on time:
- Sacrifices are Required
- Heavy lifting is a must
- Listen more than you speak
- Seek out the truth, even when it’s hard
- Followership is the key to change
- Work-life balance doesn’t exist
- Get better at giving & receiving feedback
- You can’t pick sponsors — they pick you
- Progress is slow — we need more sisterhood & male allies
1. Sacrifices Are Required
Indra told a story about a specific sacrifice she made: She was supposed to deliver the eulogy for a friend, but her attention was very much needed at work. She did what she had to at work, and managed to make the reception, but was unable to deliver the eulogy. This is an example of a major sacrifice, and while Indra did not pressure the audience to make the same sacrifice — it was a very good example of what can be required on the path. Without that sacrifice, would she have become CEO? We’ll never know… but I suspect a long line of sacrifices came before and after that moment, all of which showcased her dedication, and made her someone the company could always count on.
My take: I agree. My career required sacrifices in order to take care of my family the way I do today. I can’t conceive of a world where I could have gotten here without putting the company first often. And I don’t believe there are short cuts on the way up. But I do believe in showing up hard both at home and at work, even if it takes flying 8 hours in the wrong direction to get home for the first school bus ride:
2. Heavy Lifting Is a Must
“The higher you go, it’s either up or out. People are waiting to knock you off the ladder,” Indra said. She never avoided the grind — whether it was reviewing spreadsheets late at night or perfecting presentations.
My take: Hard work got me here. I spent 15 years working 60+ hour weeks, traveling nonstop, and meticulously preparing for meetings. Peak performance requires peak conditioning — we don’t tell professional athletes to work out four hours a week, why in the world would anyone think we could achieve great success in business with a four hour workweek? Be like Lionel Messi, do the work.
3. Listen More Than You Speak
Leadership is about hearing others, not just making yourself heard. The best leaders hire smart people and empower them.
My take: Yes — the job becomes about hiring well, listening to & empowering your teams, and finding ways for them to have the spotlight. Additionally, women are already typecast as too talkative, so be aware of that bias when you speak and be succinct, and spend time actively listening.
4. Seek Out the Truth, Even When It’s Hard
Indra said, “Accept, and seek out, people telling truths to power.” Being surrounded by people who challenge you isn’t easy, but it forces better decision-making. Being surrounded by yes men and women does not always make progress, if often gets the wrong job done.
My take: Reaching the top doesn’t mean having unchecked power — it means having full accountability. Leaders need dissenting voices to push them toward better solutions. I ask for feedback so my team feels comfortable telling me no, or an idea I have is bad, and when you open that door they storm right through :) And it’s all good.
5. Followership Is the Key to Change
Even as CEO, Indra had to cultivate buy-in to implement major changes. Leadership today is about influence, not command. And she never would have gotten to launch some of the more progressive (and healthy) product lines if she didn’t build followership.
My take: The e-word is on everyone’s mind these days. Efficiency. I have spent the past 5 years really thinking about how I move the work through my team more efficiently. I didn’t think about it as building followership but that is exactly what I’ve been trying to do — inspire the team, support the team, and set expectations with a high care + high performance standards approach. I wrote about it in “What it takes to lead gen X — Z during this hot mess.” But I’m also reminded of a brilliant woman I got to see speak many years ago — Leymah Gbowee, A Liberian peace activist responsible for helping to bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War. She did this through aligning Christian and Muslim women in a non-violent movement. The quote I took from her speech was, “When you want to go fast, you travel alone. When you want to go far, you travel together.”
6. Work-Life Balance Doesn’t Exist
Indra called it “having multiple full-time jobs.” She never stopped being a mother, even at the height of her career. There’s an awesome excerpt from a LinkedIn post by Indra:
I’ll never forget coming home after being named President of PepsiCo back in 2001. My mother was visiting at the time.
“I’ve got great news for you,” I shouted. She replied, “It can wait. We need you to go out and get some milk.”
So I go out and get milk. And when I come back, I’m hopping mad. I say, “I had great news for you. I’ve just been named President of PepsiCo. And all you want me to do is go out and get milk.”
Then she says, “Let me explain something to you. You may be President of PepsiCo. But when you step into this house, you’re a wife and mother first. Nobody can take that place. So leave that crown in the garage.”
My take: That was good advice for me. Sometimes I bring my crown inside. Indra, please thank your mother for me (and my husband).
7. Get better at giving & receiving feedback
Indra stressed that leaders must embrace feedback, not fear it. Women, in particular, often take feedback personally rather than as an opportunity to grow. “Women need to learn to calibrate, not catastrophize.”
My take: Calibration is the big unlock. You need to assume good intentions — that the person delivering the feedback is invested in your success and trying to help. When you assume good intentions, you can receive the feedback as what it is — help, and not what you otherwise might think it as — an attack. People who react defensively get sidelined.
8. You Can’t Pick Sponsors — They Pick You
Sponsorship is critical, but you have to earn it. Indra highlighted that “underperformance for men is tolerated longer than for women.” She acknowledged that sponsorship is necessary to success, but pointed out that some people think they can ask for it — but it needs to be earned.
My take: In my SNS sequel article, I focused exclusively on how women are over-mentored and under-sponsored. It’s important to learn the difference between mentorship and sponsorship and gain both — but sponsors are uniquely in positions of power to help you get the next job. But you can’t go around asking someone in power to be your sponsor — bad form — you have to earn it. They have to pick you. That’s the nature of sponsorship — it’s a selected choice.
9. Progress Is Slow — We Need More Sisterhood and Male Allies
Indra said we need more sisterhood, and more male allies. On the sisterhood part — she discussed it like the show Sex in the City where these four women are building and sharing their experiences and full lives with each other. That form of sisterhood is very hard to come by, especially in corporate America where we often perceive each other to be threats to the precious few leadership seats that will be allotted for women. But she urges for compassion, bonding, and helping one another versus competing. For male allies — she said “We have to awaken the good sense in men to be helpful.”
My take: In addition to kicking ass at your job, you absolutely do need support structures, and the sisterhood bond is one I cherish. You can’t get through this without it. It feels impossible to carve out time with friends when you’re building your career and family, but make it work. I recently got to catch up with my college friend Colleen Bianco Bezich who is the Mayor of Haddonfield, NJ, Works in the Global Communications & CEO Office of GSK, is a small business owner, and a 2025 Camden County MLK Freedom Medal winner. SHOUT OUT COLLEEN. What did we do while together? Drink wine and watch Sex In the City, obviously.
In fact it was that moment that I remembered I started this article three months ago 😬
On the topic of awakening the good sense in men to be helpful — I find male allies are everywhere, and it is not hard. But guess what ladies — you have to be inclusive. You can’t have female-only events and expect progress. You need to invite our male friends into the discussion, hear them out, and work together — without defensiveness which shuts conversations (and progress) down. Equality can’t be achieved alone, and it especially can’t be done by excluding those in power and making them the enemy. This is why I opened my article with the thought that feminism needs a rebrand — it needs inclusivity, it needs to not point fingers and blame those who benefited from a system built to support them more. That is not their fault, let’s give our friends the benefit of the doubt and let them help.
Final Thoughts
Sitting in that audience, I felt the power of Indra’s words. But when I signed up for this event, I had no idea PepsiCo even had a female President — how is that possible?! More visibility for female leaders is desperately needed. We need spaces where their stories are heard and their wisdom shared. Hopefully a few more people know about Indra’s amazing rise to the top now, and can benefit from these lessons. Let’s figure out how to support her moonshot, which is really all of ours, right?
