Indra Nooyi: A Transcultural Leader

PEP was going through a difficult time - its restaurant business was not doing well in the saturated fast-food market and its revenues from the international markets were lagging far behind archrival Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola). Nooyi was instrumental in the spinning off of the restaurant chains -- KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell -- in 1997, a difficult move that shrank the company by a third...

Nooyi continued to be a major change agent at PEP after taking over as CEO. Observers said that the earlier acquisitions of Tropicana, Quaker Oats, and Gatorade pointed to the direction that PEP would take in the future - toward 'better-for-you' products, away from junk foods. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2008, Nooyi remarked that it was essential that "we use corporations as a productive player in addressing some of the big issues facing the world"...