[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_137":-5,"_138":-5,"_139":140,"_141":142,"_143":144},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/1296/how-to-talk-to-your-team-in-a-downturn","id",1296,"title","How to talk to your team in a downturn","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.600\nYou know, the one thing I've learned is don't lie to the people.\n\n2\n00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:08.800\nDon't tell your people one thing when the reality is something different.\n\n3\n00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:11.240\nSo I confronted the truth with my people and said,\n\n4\n00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:15.160\nhey, this is the nature of the environment in front of us.\n\n5\n00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:17.920\nLet's all make sure we all understand it together because we're going to have\n\n6\n00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:18.000\nto\n\n7\n00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.480\nnavigate it together.\n\n8\n00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:22.720\nBut it's not enough to tell them what the environment is going to look like.\n\n9\n00:00:22.720 --> 00:00:25.880\nI also had to tell them exactly what we were going to do.\n\n10\n00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:31.400\nWhat we were going to do in the short term, medium term and long term.\n\n11\n00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:34.050\nI told them in the short term what they needed to do just to keep the\n\n12\n00:00:34.050 --> 00:00:35.720\nperformance going.\n\n13\n00:00:35.720 --> 00:00:39.520\nIn the medium term, what kind of acquisitions we were going to make to bolster\n\n14\n00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:43.280\nthe company's portfolio in emerging and developing markets.\n\n15\n00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:48.440\nAnd for the long term, what were we going to do today to invest in R&D,\n\n16\n00:00:48.440 --> 00:00:53.040\nto start the portfolio transformation, to put in place multiple initiatives,\n\n17\n00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:57.650\nwhich will not pay out today, but require investment today to pay out in the\n\n18\n00:00:57.650 --> 00:00:58.800\nlong term.\n\n19\n00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:02.280\nNow, I was scared, David, because I didn't know whether people would subscribe\n\n20\n00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:03.640\nto this.\n\n21\n00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:07.320\nWhat surprised me the most was they did.\n\n22\n00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:11.160\nThey were in fact relieved that that's what we were going to do because we're\n\n23\n00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:13.160\nall seeing the trends.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",2578639,"end_time",2650799,"keywords","Communication, downturn, recession, culture, transparency, transparent, truthful, truth, plan, planning","slug","how-to-talk-to-your-team-in-a-downturn","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","ba01xQeXt2mm01Uc3wSeqVWfUi01UuJFR4AW5pdH47HkeE","mux_asset_id","wTH9dw3c00uCK37eh701fvLIrNkrrS2xHvftbs00KDLo94","leader_id",131,"episode_id",279,"updated_at","2025-03-07T15:42:50.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/1296/how-to-talk-to-your-team-in-a-downturn","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_101":102,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_25":107,"_108":109,"_62":110,"_59":110,"_111":112,"_69":113,"_39":114,"_115":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_116":117,"_89":118,"_44":119,"_120":121,"_122":123,"_46":-5,"_124":125,"_126":127,"_93":128,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":58,"_59":60,"_61":-5,"_62":60,"_63":-5,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":-5,"_69":-5,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":-5,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":-5,"_89":-5,"_46":-5,"_90":91,"_92":-5,"_93":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","The Power of Elevating Others","the-power-of-elevating-others","Learn how to celebrate your team and open up new opportunities for the people you serve. See what it takes to stick to a vision, even when the naysayers are (very!) loud. Plus, hear the one leadership mistake you should never make when communicating during a crisis.","summary","

Today’s guest is Indra Nooyi, the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.

Indra is an incredibly accomplished leader. In her twelve years in charge at PepsiCo, she navigated all kinds of challenges – a global recession, major restructuring, sweeping changes in consumer habits. And yet, in those same twelve years, PepsiCo sales had risen by 80%.

That kind of leadership is impressive. But what’s even more impressive is how Indra does it – by looking for ways to elevate others and build them up.

She intentionally carves out opportunities for the people she serves.

And this isn’t just pie in the sky stuff. It’s practical. In this episode, Indra goes into detail about PepsiCo’s leadership development and retention strategies.

She talks about increasing diversity and calling out bias. And she shares her own story as a woman of color and immigrant from India.

Great leaders intentionally elevate the people they serve. And that’s the big leadership lesson waiting for you in this episode today.

You’ll also learn:

Creative ways to celebrate your team (including one you HAVE to try)
Specific strategies to boost diversity and inclusion
How to stick to a vision, even when the naysayers are (very!) loud
The one mistake you should never make when communicating during a crisis
How to call out workplace bias
The single biggest thing consultants can do to add value
The six paragraphs Indra reads every week to stay inspired
What it’s like working with Jeff Bezos as a board member for Amazon

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.760\nHello, everybody.\n\n2\n00:00:04.760 --> 00:00:07.990\nWelcome to Howl Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n3\n00:00:07.990 --> 00:00:08.460\ninterview\n\n4\n00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:10.760\nsome of the very best leaders in the world.\n\n5\n00:00:10.760 --> 00:00:14.280\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n6\n00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:14.920\nsomething\n\n7\n00:00:14.920 --> 00:00:18.800\nsimple you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n8\n00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:21.320\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n9\n00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:26.040\nToday's guest is Indra Nui, the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.\n\n10\n00:00:26.040 --> 00:00:29.040\nIndra is an incredibly accomplished leader.\n\n11\n00:00:29.040 --> 00:00:35.160\nAnd she ran PepsiCo for 12 years, from 2006 to 2018.\n\n12\n00:00:35.160 --> 00:00:39.180\nAnd she navigated all kinds of challenges during that period.\n\n13\n00:00:39.180 --> 00:00:43.800\nShe went through a global recession, major restructuring, and sweeping changes\n\n14\n00:00:43.800 --> 00:00:44.520\nin consumer\n\n15\n00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:45.520\nhabits.\n\n16\n00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:47.000\nBut you know what?\n\n17\n00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:52.160\nDuring Indra's reign as CEO, PepsiCo's sales rose by 80%.\n\n18\n00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:54.800\nNow that kind of leadership is impressive.\n\n19\n00:00:54.800 --> 00:00:58.800\nBut what's even more impressive to me is how Indra does it.\n\n20\n00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:03.100\nBy looking for ways to elevate others and build them up, she intentionally car\n\n21\n00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:03.560\nves out\n\n22\n00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:06.720\nopportunities for the people she leads and serves.\n\n23\n00:01:06.720 --> 00:01:10.200\nAnd this isn't just pie-in-the-sky stuff, it's practical.\n\n24\n00:01:10.200 --> 00:01:13.720\nYou'll hear it when she goes into detail about PepsiCo's leadership development\n\n25\n00:01:13.720 --> 00:01:14.480\nand retention\n\n26\n00:01:14.480 --> 00:01:15.480\nstrategies.\n\n27\n00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:19.360\nYou'll hear it when she talks about increasing diversity and calling out bias.\n\n28\n00:01:19.360 --> 00:01:23.410\nYou'll hear it when she shares her own story as a woman of color and immigrant\n\n29\n00:01:23.410 --> 00:01:24.960\nfrom India.\n\n30\n00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:29.410\nAnd you'll see for yourself the great leaders intentionally elevate the people\n\n31\n00:01:29.410 --> 00:01:30.240\nthey served.\n\n32\n00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:34.440\nAnd that's the big leadership lesson waiting for you in this week's episode.\n\n33\n00:01:34.440 --> 00:01:42.240\nSo here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Indra Nui.\n\n34\n00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:48.200\nIndra, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me.\n\n35\n00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:49.680\nI really, really appreciate it.\n\n36\n00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:52.610\nDavid, you know, I think the world of you and you were a great leader of young\n\n37\n00:01:52.610 --> 00:01:53.480\nrestaurants.\n\n38\n00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:56.800\nAnd I've admired you for over the many, many years.\n\n39\n00:01:56.800 --> 00:01:58.200\nAnd it's a pleasure to do this.\n\n40\n00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:00.520\nA privilege to be invited onto your point.\n\n41\n00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:05.840\nWell, you know, we are definitely living in some crazy times these days.\n\n42\n00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.400\nAnd you know, I always describe you as a change baker.\n\n43\n00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:13.590\nWell, how do you think that coronavirus is changing the way that leaders will\n\n44\n00:02:13.590 --> 00:02:14.360\nneed to\n\n45\n00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:15.600\nlead in the future?\n\n46\n00:02:15.600 --> 00:02:20.520\nI think COVID has challenged everybody because nobody has experienced a pand\n\n47\n00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:21.480\nemic like this\n\n48\n00:02:21.480 --> 00:02:22.480\nin our lifetimes.\n\n49\n00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:27.360\nThe last time it happened was in 1918, that was 102 years ago.\n\n50\n00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:30.560\nSo none of us really have a playbook to deal with the pandemic.\n\n51\n00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.480\nSo we're writing it as we go along.\n\n52\n00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:38.520\nAnd as we're writing it, we are finding that so many things have to change as\n\n53\n00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:39.440\nwe go forward\n\n54\n00:02:39.440 --> 00:02:42.920\nif we ever have another pandemic, which I hope we never do.\n\n55\n00:02:42.920 --> 00:02:47.770\nBecause pandemics require incredible coordination within a country from the\n\n56\n00:02:47.770 --> 00:02:48.640\nfederal government\n\n57\n00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:53.960\nto the state government across countries with multilateral institutions.\n\n58\n00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:58.960\nAnd you know, all of those are not something we do regularly and test them.\n\n59\n00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:05.380\nSo this particular pandemic has challenged all of us to rethink all of our\n\n60\n00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:06.840\ninstitutions,\n\n61\n00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:13.840\nour methods for cooperating across the country, across the world, because virus\n\n62\n00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:15.320\nis no no borders.\n\n63\n00:03:15.320 --> 00:03:16.320\nThey just bottle this.\n\n64\n00:03:16.320 --> 00:03:19.200\nAnd so it's a real challenge for all of us.\n\n65\n00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:22.400\nHow much do you think the way how leaders will communicate will change?\n\n66\n00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:25.960\nYou know, right now we're living in this virtual world and everybody's saying\n\n67\n00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:27.400\ndigital is accelerating\n\n68\n00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:29.520\nat least three to five years from where it was.\n\n69\n00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:33.920\nBut a lot of CEOs, I talk to feel like they're closer to their employees today\n\n70\n00:03:33.920 --> 00:03:34.320\nthan they've\n\n71\n00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:35.320\never been.\n\n72\n00:03:35.320 --> 00:03:37.840\nI actually think we miss the face-to-face interaction.\n\n73\n00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:39.240\nI know I do.\n\n74\n00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:43.370\nYou know, having shared the reopened Connecticut task force, I miss the\n\n75\n00:03:43.370 --> 00:03:44.960\nreopened committee\n\n76\n00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:49.460\nmeeting in person and talking and arguing issues because there's nothing like\n\n77\n00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:50.280\nthe emotion\n\n78\n00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:52.880\nof a face-to-face meeting.\n\n79\n00:03:52.880 --> 00:03:55.120\nAnd you know, digital technologies are fantastic.\n\n80\n00:03:55.120 --> 00:04:00.080\nDon't get me wrong with Zoom or Teams or any of the video conferencing apps.\n\n81\n00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:01.280\nThey're getting better every day.\n\n82\n00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:06.480\nBut what they don't bring is that heart to the whole process.\n\n83\n00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:12.250\nWhen you have a face-to-face meeting, you can resolve issues faster than when\n\n84\n00:04:12.250 --> 00:04:13.040\nyou have\n\n85\n00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:14.680\na video conference.\n\n86\n00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:19.710\nSo I hope we have the opportunity to do both face-to-face when it's needed,\n\n87\n00:04:19.710 --> 00:04:20.960\naugmented with\n\n88\n00:04:20.960 --> 00:04:26.280\nvideo conferencing like we have today, when we cannot really get to the office.\n\n89\n00:04:26.280 --> 00:04:32.280\nSo I think what this pandemic has enabled us to do is hybrid approaches to\n\n90\n00:04:32.280 --> 00:04:33.080\nworking in\n\n91\n00:04:33.080 --> 00:04:34.080\nan office.\n\n92\n00:04:34.080 --> 00:04:38.080\nI know that you read the book, \"The Great Influenza,\" and it's about the\n\n93\n00:04:38.080 --> 00:04:38.840\nSpanish flu\n\n94\n00:04:38.840 --> 00:04:42.680\nthat you just made reference to, which happened in 1918.\n\n95\n00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:47.720\nWhat did you learn from reading that book that should be relevant to us today?\n\n96\n00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:51.200\nI'd say pretty much the whole book, David, and there are certain chapters,\n\n97\n00:04:51.200 --> 00:04:51.840\nespecially\n\n98\n00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:56.710\nthe last three pages of the book, which talks about what should leaders do in\n\n99\n00:04:56.710 --> 00:04:57.240\nthe next\n\n100\n00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:01.870\npandemic, believe in the science, be brutally honest, pull no punches, tell the\n\n101\n00:05:01.870 --> 00:05:02.360\npublic\n\n102\n00:05:02.360 --> 00:05:04.400\nexactly what's going on.\n\n103\n00:05:04.400 --> 00:05:08.120\nDon't create a panic, but don't suppress the truth.\n\n104\n00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:09.120\nGive them hope.\n\n105\n00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:11.960\nTell them exactly what you're doing.\n\n106\n00:05:11.960 --> 00:05:13.880\nTrust the science.\n\n107\n00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:18.820\nAnd so as I read the book, I almost felt like just taking out the 1918\n\n108\n00:05:18.820 --> 00:05:20.400\ninfluenza and substituting\n\n109\n00:05:20.400 --> 00:05:21.400\nit with COVID.\n\n110\n00:05:21.400 --> 00:05:23.880\nThe similarities are eerie.\n\n111\n00:05:23.880 --> 00:05:26.320\nAnd John Barrett did an excellent job writing that book.\n\n112\n00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:27.320\nIt was readable.\n\n113\n00:05:27.320 --> 00:05:32.740\nIt was difficult to understand the magnitude of the pandemic when it happened\n\n114\n00:05:32.740 --> 00:05:34.080\nin 1918.\n\n115\n00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:35.240\nIt was worldwide.\n\n116\n00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:36.240\nIt was devastating.\n\n117\n00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:40.810\nBut I think we should all read it to make sure that we never have that happen\n\n118\n00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:41.200\nto us\n\n119\n00:05:41.200 --> 00:05:42.200\nagain.\n\n120\n00:05:42.200 --> 00:05:44.400\nWell, I'm definitely going to give it a read myself.\n\n121\n00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:46.280\nThis is such a huge crisis.\n\n122\n00:05:46.280 --> 00:05:49.710\nAnd when you look back, Andrew, what was the biggest crisis that you had to\n\n123\n00:05:49.710 --> 00:05:50.440\nhandle in your\n\n124\n00:05:50.440 --> 00:05:53.720\nbusiness career and what did you learn from it?\n\n125\n00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:54.880\nYou know, multiple crises.\n\n126\n00:05:54.880 --> 00:05:59.240\nIf I go back to just my Pepsi code days, I was there for 25 years.\n\n127\n00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:04.280\nYou know, when your CFO and president and IT is reporting to you and you have a\n\n128\n00:06:04.280 --> 00:06:04.760\nmajor\n\n129\n00:06:04.760 --> 00:06:07.320\nsystem failure, that's a crisis.\n\n130\n00:06:07.320 --> 00:06:10.120\nIt's before a Memorial Day audit processing.\n\n131\n00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:15.870\nOh my God, you get, I mean, you just freak out when you have the financial\n\n132\n00:06:15.870 --> 00:06:16.880\ncrisis and\n\n133\n00:06:16.880 --> 00:06:18.880\nbusiness is really taking a beating.\n\n134\n00:06:18.880 --> 00:06:21.320\nYou know, it's a crisis you have to deal with.\n\n135\n00:06:21.320 --> 00:06:25.240\nWhen an activist investor comes into your stock, you know, it's a crisis you\n\n136\n00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:25.600\nhave to\n\n137\n00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:26.600\ndeal with.\n\n138\n00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:31.440\nAnd each of these, I think for a brief moment you panic, that's inevitable.\n\n139\n00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:36.240\nBut then a good leader recovers from the panic really fast and says, okay, I've\n\n140\n00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:36.600\ndone\n\n141\n00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:38.720\nwith the panic game a few minutes.\n\n142\n00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:43.430\nNow let me see what I can do about it because being in a state of panic doesn't\n\n143\n00:06:43.430 --> 00:06:43.760\nhelp.\n\n144\n00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:47.360\nPeople are looking up to you to see what you want them to do.\n\n145\n00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:49.080\nYou have to provide the direction.\n\n146\n00:06:49.080 --> 00:06:52.910\nSo you collect yourself and you sit up and you say, okay, let's put our arms\n\n147\n00:06:52.910 --> 00:06:53.400\naround\n\n148\n00:06:53.400 --> 00:06:54.400\nthe issue.\n\n149\n00:06:54.400 --> 00:06:57.960\nLet's really understand what's going on.\n\n150\n00:06:57.960 --> 00:06:59.400\nLet's bring the experts in the room.\n\n151\n00:06:59.400 --> 00:07:04.200\nLet's learn from them and then start to get a craft to plan forward.\n\n152\n00:07:04.200 --> 00:07:07.910\nIt's tough because deep down inside, you're feeling terrible about the fact\n\n153\n00:07:07.910 --> 00:07:08.480\nthat you have\n\n154\n00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:11.000\nto handle this issue.\n\n155\n00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:15.230\nBut I tell you, after the first crisis you've had, the second one gets better,\n\n156\n00:07:15.230 --> 00:07:15.680\nthe third\n\n157\n00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:17.320\none gets even better.\n\n158\n00:07:17.320 --> 00:07:18.720\nAnd it's a learning process.\n\n159\n00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:22.870\nBut I have to tell you, every crisis that you go through makes you a better\n\n160\n00:07:22.870 --> 00:07:23.600\nperson.\n\n161\n00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:27.360\nThat's what that's saying, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.\n\n162\n00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:28.800\nExactly right.\n\n163\n00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:34.560\nYou know, leaders have also had to witness and respond to the tragic death of\n\n164\n00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:35.520\nGeorge Floyd\n\n165\n00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:38.440\nand the rightful plea for racial justice.\n\n166\n00:07:38.440 --> 00:07:42.160\nYou have such a renowned platform, Indra.\n\n167\n00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:46.500\nWhat are you doing on this front and what advice do you have to offer to other\n\n168\n00:07:46.500 --> 00:07:47.240\nleaders?\n\n169\n00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:51.890\nA lot of what I did was when I was at PepsiCo, PepsiCo was a company that\n\n170\n00:07:51.890 --> 00:07:53.120\nreally believed\n\n171\n00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:55.440\nin diversity and inclusion.\n\n172\n00:07:55.440 --> 00:07:59.070\nAnd going back to the days of Steve Reinerman, when he really jumped out at the\n\n173\n00:07:59.070 --> 00:08:00.280\nwhole DNI\n\n174\n00:08:00.280 --> 00:08:06.420\nprocess, I had the opportunity to have a critical mass of people, of all kinds\n\n175\n00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:07.400\nin PepsiCo,\n\n176\n00:08:07.400 --> 00:08:10.120\nso that we could build on that critical mass of people.\n\n177\n00:08:10.120 --> 00:08:14.650\nSo I first want to get credit to Steve Reinerman for what he put into the\n\n178\n00:08:14.650 --> 00:08:15.160\ncompany.\n\n179\n00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:19.910\nAnd PepsiCo wanted to be a company where its employee base reflected the\n\n180\n00:08:19.910 --> 00:08:21.160\nconsumer base.\n\n181\n00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:25.920\nSo we were inching our way up to those numbers in the company.\n\n182\n00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:31.380\nAnd we were making very good progress, not just in hiring, but in retaining and\n\n183\n00:08:31.380 --> 00:08:32.960\ndeveloping.\n\n184\n00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:36.800\nSo we were having explicit programs to make sure we retain people and we\n\n185\n00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:37.680\ndevelop people\n\n186\n00:08:37.680 --> 00:08:39.120\nbecause we didn't want to lose people.\n\n187\n00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:41.560\nWe struggled so much to hire.\n\n188\n00:08:41.560 --> 00:08:43.320\nSo we worked very hard at that.\n\n189\n00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:46.640\nNow that I've retired, I don't have a platform as such.\n\n190\n00:08:46.640 --> 00:08:51.270\nBut I will tell you, David, I'm very, very enthused by what I'm seeing in any\n\n191\n00:08:51.270 --> 00:08:51.960\nforums that\n\n192\n00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:58.030\nI'm attending because many, many CEOs are committing to really work this issue\n\n193\n00:08:58.030 --> 00:09:01.400\nin a very focused\n\n194\n00:09:01.400 --> 00:09:05.110\nimmediate way, which I think is a big change from the past where people were\n\n195\n00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:05.840\njust looking\n\n196\n00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:10.520\nat this issue and say, I'll get to it or I'll address it over the years.\n\n197\n00:09:10.520 --> 00:09:14.360\nNow they're saying we have to put the money behind these programs.\n\n198\n00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:15.360\nWe have to do it now.\n\n199\n00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:19.870\nI'm actually very optimistic that this time around, people were recognized that\n\n200\n00:09:19.870 --> 00:09:20.440\nit's not\n\n201\n00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.920\na nice to do, it's a must do.\n\n202\n00:09:23.920 --> 00:09:25.760\nYeah, I couldn't agree more.\n\n203\n00:09:25.760 --> 00:09:34.180\nAnd Andrew, I know that you are a big fan of the great late representative John\n\n204\n00:09:34.180 --> 00:09:34.760\nLewis.\n\n205\n00:09:34.760 --> 00:09:36.480\nWhat do you think we can learn from him?\n\n206\n00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:40.920\nI mean, he was a great civil rights leader, great congressman.\n\n207\n00:09:40.920 --> 00:09:44.360\nWhat can we learn from him and how he tried to solve the problem?\n\n208\n00:09:44.360 --> 00:09:47.420\nYou know, I think if you go back to John Lewis and I've been doing a lot of\n\n209\n00:09:47.420 --> 00:09:48.400\nreading of Martin\n\n210\n00:09:48.400 --> 00:09:52.310\nLuther King and other leaders, I think basically the message that they were\n\n211\n00:09:52.310 --> 00:09:53.240\ngiving is one of\n\n212\n00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:57.920\nunity, solving problems through unity, not through divisions.\n\n213\n00:09:57.920 --> 00:10:03.950\nIf you read everything John Lewis said, it was through unity, do not divide\n\n214\n00:10:03.950 --> 00:10:04.960\nsociety.\n\n215\n00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:07.680\nLet's come together and solve issues.\n\n216\n00:10:07.680 --> 00:10:11.960\nAnd to me, that's what endured me to John Lewis if you want to call it that.\n\n217\n00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:17.580\nAnd at no point in his career, in spite of all that he went through, did he\n\n218\n00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:18.280\never talk\n\n219\n00:10:18.280 --> 00:10:20.480\nabout a divided society?\n\n220\n00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:24.320\nHe only talked about us coming together to solve these issues.\n\n221\n00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:25.800\nAnd he was a man of hope.\n\n222\n00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:28.680\nHe always thought we could address these issues.\n\n223\n00:10:28.680 --> 00:10:30.680\nHe never held a grudge.\n\n224\n00:10:30.680 --> 00:10:34.170\nIf you go back and look at all of the stuff he went through, he never held a gr\n\n225\n00:10:34.170 --> 00:10:34.680\nudge.\n\n226\n00:10:34.680 --> 00:10:38.520\nI wish I could be such a big person, but he was.\n\n227\n00:10:38.520 --> 00:10:46.100\nYou've always believed in confronting bias publicly and you've written about it\n\n228\n00:10:46.100 --> 00:10:46.600\nand you\n\n229\n00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:51.080\nsay that confronting bias publicly is essential.\n\n230\n00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:54.400\nCan you tell us a story of when you've done that?\n\n231\n00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:59.160\nTypically, what happens is that unconscious bias more than conscious bias.\n\n232\n00:10:59.160 --> 00:11:03.300\nSometimes when a woman is talking, somebody will roll their eyes or when\n\n233\n00:11:03.300 --> 00:11:04.080\nsomebody who's\n\n234\n00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:09.620\ndiverse of any kind talks or says something, some group in the meeting would\n\n235\n00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:10.480\nroll their\n\n236\n00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:14.040\neyes or cut them off.\n\n237\n00:11:14.040 --> 00:11:16.680\nYou can't allow that to happen.\n\n238\n00:11:16.680 --> 00:11:20.370\nThey may not even realize they're doing it, but you've got to stop that and say\n\n239\n00:11:20.370 --> 00:11:20.800\n, hey,\n\n240\n00:11:20.800 --> 00:11:23.560\nwhy did you talk over that person?\n\n241\n00:11:23.560 --> 00:11:25.520\nWhy did you cut that person off?\n\n242\n00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:27.720\nWhy did you roll your eyes when that person was talking?\n\n243\n00:11:27.720 --> 00:11:31.960\nWhat was the issue you were addressing when you rolled your eyes?\n\n244\n00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:36.710\nSo at every point when you see bad behavior, conscious or unconscious, you've\n\n245\n00:11:36.710 --> 00:11:37.240\ngot to call\n\n246\n00:11:37.240 --> 00:11:39.080\nit out right there.\n\n247\n00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:42.160\nIf it happens again and again, it's conscious.\n\n248\n00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:46.000\nIf it happens once and they change, it was unconscious the first time.\n\n249\n00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:49.880\nSo you give them a pass the first time, the second time you get serious and the\n\n250\n00:11:49.880 --> 00:11:50.240\nthird\n\n251\n00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:53.960\ntime you really go for some action.\n\n252\n00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:55.960\nSo I think it's a question of education.\n\n253\n00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:01.830\nIt's a question of giving them a chance, modeling their behavior back to them\n\n254\n00:12:01.830 --> 00:12:02.920\nand seeing how\n\n255\n00:12:02.920 --> 00:12:04.800\nthey feel about it.\n\n256\n00:12:04.800 --> 00:12:05.800\nIt's a process.\n\n257\n00:12:05.800 --> 00:12:07.920\nIt doesn't happen overnight.\n\n258\n00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:12.540\nI understand that you have a new book in the works and you have so many\n\n259\n00:12:12.540 --> 00:12:14.440\nvaluable experiences.\n\n260\n00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:16.920\nWhat do you plan to cover in your book?\n\n261\n00:12:16.920 --> 00:12:19.160\nIt's all about integrating work and family.\n\n262\n00:12:19.160 --> 00:12:23.710\nAnd basically the premise of my book, David, is that as a country, we want to\n\n263\n00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:24.760\nenable families\n\n264\n00:12:24.760 --> 00:12:27.440\nto have about two kids for family.\n\n265\n00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:29.720\nThat's the replacement rate for the country.\n\n266\n00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:35.490\nBut we also want every brain in the country to be deployed in the work of the\n\n267\n00:12:35.490 --> 00:12:36.400\ncountry so\n\n268\n00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:38.840\nthat we can grow as a country.\n\n269\n00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:41.320\nAnd then I'm talking about men and women alike.\n\n270\n00:12:41.320 --> 00:12:46.130\nSo the real question is how do we enable all of them to be able to come to work\n\n271\n00:12:46.130 --> 00:12:46.680\nand have\n\n272\n00:12:46.680 --> 00:12:50.360\na paid job so that the GDP of the country can grow?\n\n273\n00:12:50.360 --> 00:12:54.380\nAt the same time, families are also created and children are nurtured and\n\n274\n00:12:54.380 --> 00:12:55.160\ndeveloped.\n\n275\n00:12:55.160 --> 00:13:01.060\nSo how do we provide the support system for people in terms of childcare, in\n\n276\n00:13:01.060 --> 00:13:01.760\nterms of\n\n277\n00:13:01.760 --> 00:13:07.680\nfamily leave, maternity care, whatever, in order to enable them to have\n\n278\n00:13:07.680 --> 00:13:08.720\nfamilies and\n\n279\n00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:12.080\nwork without going through incredible stress?\n\n280\n00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:16.050\nI find that men and women alike today, young people, are going through a lot of\n\n281\n00:13:16.050 --> 00:13:16.800\nstress when\n\n282\n00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:19.520\nthey have to balance so many priorities.\n\n283\n00:13:19.520 --> 00:13:24.270\nSo the real question is how do you create institutional policies working\n\n284\n00:13:24.270 --> 00:13:26.680\nbetween government, societies,\n\n285\n00:13:26.680 --> 00:13:29.280\ncommunities, companies to be able to make it happen?\n\n286\n00:13:29.280 --> 00:13:31.280\nYeah, it's a book I'm going to read, Edris.\n\n287\n00:13:31.280 --> 00:13:34.680\nSo I'm hoping you'll give me an autograph copy.\n\n288\n00:13:34.680 --> 00:13:38.320\nI'm hoping that I'll come back on your podcast and talk about it, David.\n\n289\n00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:39.320\nI can't wait to do that.\n\n290\n00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:40.320\nThat'll be great.\n\n291\n00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:43.720\nYou mentioned it a little bit earlier, but you've taken on a special project to\n\n292\n00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:44.040\nhelp\n\n293\n00:13:44.040 --> 00:13:46.680\nGovernor Ned Lamont and Connecticut.\n\n294\n00:13:46.680 --> 00:13:48.520\nCould you tell us a little bit about what you're doing?\n\n295\n00:13:48.520 --> 00:13:49.520\nYeah, two things.\n\n296\n00:13:49.520 --> 00:13:54.790\nOne, I'm the co-chair of the Advanced CT, which is Advancing Connecticut's\n\n297\n00:13:54.790 --> 00:13:56.520\nEconomic Opportunities.\n\n298\n00:13:56.520 --> 00:14:01.360\nIt's a business-led entity in the state of Connecticut.\n\n299\n00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:04.160\nWe're not a government organization.\n\n300\n00:14:04.160 --> 00:14:06.320\nWe are a private organization.\n\n301\n00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:09.600\nAnd we really talk about how to bring investment to Connecticut.\n\n302\n00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:14.100\nThat's what I was doing until Governor Lamont wanted me to co-chair the\n\n303\n00:14:14.100 --> 00:14:15.680\nreopened Connecticut\n\n304\n00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:17.440\ntask force.\n\n305\n00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:23.280\nAnd to help him with how to think about how he should reopen Connecticut.\n\n306\n00:14:23.280 --> 00:14:27.360\nSo it was a private task force through Advanced CT.\n\n307\n00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:31.550\nAnd we helped provide the Governor a framework so that he and his cabinet would\n\n308\n00:14:31.550 --> 00:14:32.440\ndecide exactly\n\n309\n00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:36.120\nhow they wanted to reopen Connecticut.\n\n310\n00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:40.570\nAnd we worked for about 10 weeks, all of us, with the government officials,\n\n311\n00:14:40.570 --> 00:14:41.520\nwith all kinds\n\n312\n00:14:41.520 --> 00:14:43.200\nof experts.\n\n313\n00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:47.520\nAnd we provided a framework to the Governor who then took the framework with\n\n314\n00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:48.160\nhis team,\n\n315\n00:14:48.160 --> 00:14:52.880\nmodified it, and applied it in the state of Connecticut successfully.\n\n316\n00:14:52.880 --> 00:14:56.440\nFirst of all, he's a wonderful Governor, so everything worked out very well.\n\n317\n00:14:56.440 --> 00:14:57.440\nThat's great.\n\n318\n00:14:57.440 --> 00:14:58.440\nThat's great.\n\n319\n00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:00.080\nYou know, once a change maker always a change maker.\n\n320\n00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:02.600\nTrying, David, just like you.\n\n321\n00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:08.290\nYou sit on the review panel for Quality Can't Wait Challenge that Melinda Gates\n\n322\n00:15:08.290 --> 00:15:09.600\nchampioned.\n\n323\n00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.280\nSo what do you hope to accomplish by doing that?\n\n324\n00:15:12.280 --> 00:15:15.280\nI think we're just trying to find role models and showcase them and give them\n\n325\n00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:15.880\nprizes so\n\n326\n00:15:15.880 --> 00:15:19.160\nthat people feel like there's something they can aspire to.\n\n327\n00:15:19.160 --> 00:15:24.210\nWhen you look at any of these organizations that set up prizes and give it to\n\n328\n00:15:24.210 --> 00:15:24.960\npeople,\n\n329\n00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:29.070\nit's because they want to recognize people for doing things that move society\n\n330\n00:15:29.070 --> 00:15:29.800\nforward.\n\n331\n00:15:29.800 --> 00:15:32.760\nYou never give a prize to somebody to move society back.\n\n332\n00:15:32.760 --> 00:15:35.560\nYou always give a prize to move society forward.\n\n333\n00:15:35.560 --> 00:15:37.680\nSo you know, there's equality can't wait.\n\n334\n00:15:37.680 --> 00:15:42.780\nThe Ruth Bader Ginsburg Award Committee that I sit on, all Jason Witten Colleg\n\n335\n00:15:42.780 --> 00:15:43.400\niate Award\n\n336\n00:15:43.400 --> 00:15:48.040\nCommittee I sit on, all of these are to move society forward.\n\n337\n00:15:48.040 --> 00:15:53.190\nSomebody who's done something wonderful, beyond the call of what they regularly\n\n338\n00:15:53.190 --> 00:15:54.240\ndo to help\n\n339\n00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:59.160\nmove societal issues, to help address societal issues and move society forward.\n\n340\n00:15:59.160 --> 00:16:02.880\nAnd to me, equality can't wait.\n\n341\n00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:05.280\nThe submissions haven't come to me.\n\n342\n00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:09.860\nBut when I did Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jason Witten Collegiate Award, some of\n\n343\n00:16:09.860 --> 00:16:10.120\nthe write\n\n344\n00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:14.000\nups of the people that came to us just spectacular.\n\n345\n00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:15.520\nPeople are doing some amazing things.\n\n346\n00:16:15.520 --> 00:16:17.920\nIt'll make your heart very warm.\n\n347\n00:16:17.920 --> 00:16:20.920\nYou know, you've met so many amazing leaders.\n\n348\n00:16:20.920 --> 00:16:24.960\nWho would be the most impressive female leader that you've met?\n\n349\n00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:27.480\nAs a female leader.\n\n350\n00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:31.840\nLet me name a few because I think I've met a bunch of people.\n\n351\n00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:34.360\nChristine Lagarde just blows me away.\n\n352\n00:16:34.360 --> 00:16:35.360\nShe's brilliant.\n\n353\n00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:36.360\nShe's global.\n\n354\n00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:38.440\nShe's focused.\n\n355\n00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:42.160\nShe understands issues around the world and spectacular ways.\n\n356\n00:16:42.160 --> 00:16:45.480\nI enjoy talking to Christine Lagarde.\n\n357\n00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:49.120\nHillary Clinton is perhaps one of the smartest women I've ever met, smartest\n\n358\n00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:49.760\npeople I've\n\n359\n00:16:49.760 --> 00:16:51.800\never met.\n\n360\n00:16:51.800 --> 00:16:54.200\nKay Bailey Hutchinson from Texas.\n\n361\n00:16:54.200 --> 00:16:56.520\nSomebody, I simply adore.\n\n362\n00:16:56.520 --> 00:16:59.880\nYou know, I've had many, many conversations with Kay Bailey Hutchinson.\n\n363\n00:16:59.880 --> 00:17:03.840\nI even did a luncheon for her in Dallas.\n\n364\n00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:08.680\nShe's a calming person with a great global view.\n\n365\n00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:10.320\nI've enjoyed talking to her.\n\n366\n00:17:10.320 --> 00:17:15.820\nIf I go over to Asia, Ho Ching of Singapore is another person who has a very\n\n367\n00:17:15.820 --> 00:17:17.360\nglobal perspective\n\n368\n00:17:17.360 --> 00:17:18.360\nof all issues.\n\n369\n00:17:18.360 --> 00:17:20.560\nI mean, he sit down and talk to Ho Ching.\n\n370\n00:17:20.560 --> 00:17:26.080\nYou leave feeling even more informed about the state of the world.\n\n371\n00:17:26.080 --> 00:17:30.720\nSo my job and even today, I come in contact with all these people.\n\n372\n00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:35.810\nAnd I've truly enjoyed getting to know them and chatting with them and learning\n\n373\n00:17:35.810 --> 00:17:36.360\nfrom them\n\n374\n00:17:36.360 --> 00:17:37.360\nmore than anything else.\n\n375\n00:17:37.360 --> 00:17:39.000\nI'm sure that's a two-way street.\n\n376\n00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:40.000\nThere's no doubt about that.\n\n377\n00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:42.840\nI hope so, but I think I'm the next beneficiary.\n\n378\n00:17:42.840 --> 00:17:48.140\nI have to ask you to just, how hard has it been for you to step back from being\n\n379\n00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:48.520\non the\n\n380\n00:17:48.520 --> 00:17:54.460\nfront line of such a major company like PepsiCo and being the CEO and having\n\n381\n00:17:54.460 --> 00:17:55.960\nthat responsibility?\n\n382\n00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:56.960\nHow hard has it been?\n\n383\n00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:00.280\nSo let me talk about what I thought it would be and what it is.\n\n384\n00:18:00.280 --> 00:18:05.170\nI thought I was going to be bereft because 25 years, go, go, go and PepsiCo and\n\n385\n00:18:05.170 --> 00:18:05.640\n15 years\n\n386\n00:18:05.640 --> 00:18:09.810\nbefore that, the last 12 years CEO and I'm saying, \"Oh my God, what am I going\n\n387\n00:18:09.810 --> 00:18:10.160\nto do\n\n388\n00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:11.480\nwith my life?\"\n\n389\n00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:16.270\nI walked out of the PepsiCo headquarters on October 2nd as I stepped down as\n\n390\n00:18:16.270 --> 00:18:16.800\nCEO.\n\n391\n00:18:16.800 --> 00:18:20.920\nAnd I walked into my office and Greenwich, my family office and I haven't\n\n392\n00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:21.760\nlooked back.\n\n393\n00:18:21.760 --> 00:18:25.600\nI've been busier than before in my own way.\n\n394\n00:18:25.600 --> 00:18:29.360\nMy life is richer in a funny way because I'm learning so much more, meeting\n\n395\n00:18:29.360 --> 00:18:30.160\nmore interesting\n\n396\n00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:34.600\npeople and I'm not wedded to a quarterly earnings cycle.\n\n397\n00:18:34.600 --> 00:18:35.840\nIt sort of grinds it to you.\n\n398\n00:18:35.840 --> 00:18:39.240\nAnd remember I was the CFO and president and then CEO.\n\n399\n00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:44.200\nI did 75 quarters of earnings releases, 75 quarters.\n\n400\n00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:45.600\nThat's a lot.\n\n401\n00:18:45.600 --> 00:18:50.560\nAnd in a funny way, I tell you, I feel lighter, healthier.\n\n402\n00:18:50.560 --> 00:18:53.840\nI loved PepsiCo and it's people when I was there.\n\n403\n00:18:53.840 --> 00:18:55.040\nBut I'm a new person.\n\n404\n00:18:55.040 --> 00:18:56.040\nI'm reborn.\n\n405\n00:18:56.040 --> 00:18:59.070\nYeah, well, you're reborn and you're doing a lot of great things which is no\n\n406\n00:18:59.070 --> 00:18:59.520\nsurprise\n\n407\n00:18:59.520 --> 00:19:00.520\nto me.\n\n408\n00:19:00.520 --> 00:19:03.080\nI always tell everybody when people ask me that question, I didn't know I could\n\n409\n00:19:03.080 --> 00:19:03.280\nlove\n\n410\n00:19:03.280 --> 00:19:06.360\nsomething so much and miss it so little.\n\n411\n00:19:06.360 --> 00:19:09.280\nYou and I are exactly the same David.\n\n412\n00:19:09.280 --> 00:19:13.050\nI think because it's productive lives that we have no time to miss anything\n\n413\n00:19:13.050 --> 00:19:13.560\nelse.\n\n414\n00:19:13.560 --> 00:19:15.560\nYou are such an avid learner.\n\n415\n00:19:15.560 --> 00:19:20.320\nHow are you continuing to sharpen your acts?\n\n416\n00:19:20.320 --> 00:19:24.520\nFirst of all, I'm involved with so many activities, so many businesses.\n\n417\n00:19:24.520 --> 00:19:27.120\nI advise so many little startup companies.\n\n418\n00:19:27.120 --> 00:19:30.240\nBut I don't just advise them, I actually learn their business.\n\n419\n00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:34.990\nI go to school on their business and I really want to understand what that\n\n420\n00:19:34.990 --> 00:19:35.920\nindustry is.\n\n421\n00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:39.480\nAnd so that allows me to open my vistas a lot.\n\n422\n00:19:39.480 --> 00:19:43.640\nBeing on the Amazon board, I learned so much from them.\n\n423\n00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:48.120\nIt's perhaps one of the most, I think it's a 23rd century company.\n\n424\n00:19:48.120 --> 00:19:53.000\nIt's like the technologies that they embrace, the way they think about the\n\n425\n00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:54.000\nfuture, the way\n\n426\n00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:57.360\nthey think about the customer because they're always customer first is\n\n427\n00:19:57.360 --> 00:19:58.280\nunbelievable.\n\n428\n00:19:58.280 --> 00:20:02.200\nSo I think that has been an amazing learning opportunity.\n\n429\n00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:10.600\nI teach up at West Point, the military academy and watching those cadets learn,\n\n430\n00:20:10.600 --> 00:20:10.760\nwatching\n\n431\n00:20:10.760 --> 00:20:13.360\nthose faculty members teach them.\n\n432\n00:20:13.360 --> 00:20:18.680\nI sit there and look at them in awe because the discipline, the focus, the\n\n433\n00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:19.680\ncommitment,\n\n434\n00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:23.280\nthe patriotism they have is something that I think David, I'm trying to get you\n\n435\n00:20:23.280 --> 00:20:23.680\nout there\n\n436\n00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:25.480\nto West Point to speak to them.\n\n437\n00:20:25.480 --> 00:20:28.200\nIt is just amazing.\n\n438\n00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:34.570\nSo I am involved in so many things and each of the activities I'm involved in,\n\n439\n00:20:34.570 --> 00:20:35.040\nit's actually\n\n440\n00:20:35.040 --> 00:20:38.040\nteaching me more than I'm teaching them.\n\n441\n00:20:38.040 --> 00:20:42.960\nI'd be honored to be a guest at the Zoom, but you know what?\n\n442\n00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:45.320\nThey would benefit enormously from you.\n\n443\n00:20:45.320 --> 00:20:46.520\nI would love to do that.\n\n444\n00:20:46.520 --> 00:20:51.410\nAndrea, you were recognized on the 100th birthday of the League of Women Voters\n\n445\n00:20:51.410 --> 00:20:52.240\nas the most\n\n446\n00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:55.400\noutstanding woman in business.\n\n447\n00:20:55.400 --> 00:20:57.360\nWhat did that mean to you?\n\n448\n00:20:57.360 --> 00:20:58.360\nGood news, bad news.\n\n449\n00:20:58.360 --> 00:20:59.720\nLet me tell you what it is.\n\n450\n00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:04.760\nThe great news is that they looked at me and said that I was a role model.\n\n451\n00:21:04.760 --> 00:21:10.480\nI paved the way for other women to say, \"Hey, we too can be like Indra.\"\n\n452\n00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:14.040\nSomebody of color, somebody was an immigrant.\n\n453\n00:21:14.040 --> 00:21:16.680\nI gave hope to so many people.\n\n454\n00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:19.040\nSo that part made me feel great.\n\n455\n00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:22.700\nThe part that made me feel a little bad, that there weren't as many of us as\n\n456\n00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:23.240\nthere could\n\n457\n00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:24.640\nhave been.\n\n458\n00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:25.840\nAs there could have been.\n\n459\n00:21:25.840 --> 00:21:29.240\nIf you really look at it, our numbers are still small.\n\n460\n00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:32.480\nI think in 10 or 15 years, it's going to be much more.\n\n461\n00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:37.910\nThe fact that the progress over the last 50 to 75 years has been glacial made\n\n462\n00:21:37.910 --> 00:21:38.480\nme feel\n\n463\n00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:39.480\nbad.\n\n464\n00:21:39.480 --> 00:21:44.160\nWhile you like to be celebrated, you want to be among a much larger group.\n\n465\n00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:48.520\nMaybe about 10% of the Fortune 500 women CEOs.\n\n466\n00:21:48.520 --> 00:21:50.920\nSo we have a long way to go.\n\n467\n00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:53.600\nAnd so like I said, there's good news, bad news.\n\n468\n00:21:53.600 --> 00:21:57.700\nYou feel great being celebrated, but you know that you've got to pave the way\n\n469\n00:21:57.700 --> 00:21:58.200\nfor more\n\n470\n00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:00.560\npeople to come up in the ranks.\n\n471\n00:22:00.560 --> 00:22:01.800\nThat's why the book is important.\n\n472\n00:22:01.800 --> 00:22:03.200\nYeah, I agree.\n\n473\n00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:06.470\nThe other thing that I know that you do is you challenge everyone to get a\n\n474\n00:22:06.470 --> 00:22:07.400\nfemale mentor.\n\n475\n00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:08.400\nExplain that.\n\n476\n00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:09.400\nWell, it's interesting.\n\n477\n00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:17.610\nWhen I left PepsiCo, people kept saying, \"Why didn't you replace yourself with\n\n478\n00:22:17.610 --> 00:22:18.280\na woman\n\n479\n00:22:18.280 --> 00:22:19.280\nCEO?\"\n\n480\n00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:22.040\nWhy don't they ask the men that?\n\n481\n00:22:22.040 --> 00:22:25.200\nWhy haven't you replaced yourself with a woman CEO?\n\n482\n00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:31.120\nSo I think it's a question of all of us have to pull each other up.\n\n483\n00:22:31.120 --> 00:22:33.440\nWomen should not be mentoring just women.\n\n484\n00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:35.320\nMen should not be mentoring just men.\n\n485\n00:22:35.320 --> 00:22:36.600\nIt should be all over the place.\n\n486\n00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:37.600\nMen should mentor women.\n\n487\n00:22:37.600 --> 00:22:40.560\nWomen should be mentoring men because we all learn from each other.\n\n488\n00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:46.290\nSo I always tell people, if you go and get a female mentor, you'll just get a\n\n489\n00:22:46.290 --> 00:22:47.080\nfeel for\n\n490\n00:22:47.080 --> 00:22:51.120\nthe other side, the EQ more than just the IQ.\n\n491\n00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:55.960\nYou'll understand business from the point of view of somebody quite different.\n\n492\n00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:59.720\nMake sure you understand everybody's point of view.\n\n493\n00:22:59.720 --> 00:23:04.490\nAnd that's why I think that it always helps to have male mentors, but it also\n\n494\n00:23:04.490 --> 00:23:05.120\nhelps to\n\n495\n00:23:05.120 --> 00:23:09.390\nhave female mentors because they give you just a slightly different perspective\n\n496\n00:23:09.390 --> 00:23:09.640\n.\n\n497\n00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:11.560\nI didn't know you were on the Amazon board.\n\n498\n00:23:11.560 --> 00:23:12.720\nI should have known that.\n\n499\n00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:17.480\nIt's interesting, Jeff Bezos is an amazing leader.\n\n500\n00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:20.840\nWhat have you learned watching him in action?\n\n501\n00:23:20.840 --> 00:23:24.480\nI don't think I've met anybody quite as brilliant as him.\n\n502\n00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:29.010\nI mean, it's just his brain, the way it works, how much he's willing to absorb\n\n503\n00:23:29.010 --> 00:23:30.920\nor can absorb,\n\n504\n00:23:30.920 --> 00:23:34.920\nhow he can push the boundaries of thinking and innovation and invention.\n\n505\n00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:38.080\nI am more than all than anything else.\n\n506\n00:23:38.080 --> 00:23:44.830\nThe fact that he's built this US-based enterprise from the ground up, from the\n\n507\n00:23:44.830 --> 00:23:46.600\ntrunk of his car\n\n508\n00:23:46.600 --> 00:23:53.000\nis just a, how do I call it, the eighth wonder of the world.\n\n509\n00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:58.840\nI mean, look at the size of that company, from the trunk of his car.\n\n510\n00:23:58.840 --> 00:24:03.080\nAnd it's not a company, even though it's founded led, he doesn't act that way.\n\n511\n00:24:03.080 --> 00:24:05.480\nHe runs it very professionally.\n\n512\n00:24:05.480 --> 00:24:13.420\nSo the fact that somebody like him who grew up in very humble circumstances can\n\n513\n00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:13.720\nbuild\n\n514\n00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:18.120\nthis incredible enterprise that is still in his early stages is something that\n\n515\n00:24:18.120 --> 00:24:18.400\nwe can\n\n516\n00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:20.280\nall learn from.\n\n517\n00:24:20.280 --> 00:24:24.400\nAnd every time I go to an Amazon board meeting or read anything they send or\n\n518\n00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:25.360\ninterface with\n\n519\n00:24:25.360 --> 00:24:32.080\nthem, I just said they're going, man, these are unusual human beings.\n\n520\n00:24:32.080 --> 00:24:35.390\nI think every business person in the world would like to be a fly in the wall\n\n521\n00:24:35.390 --> 00:24:35.720\nof one\n\n522\n00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:37.880\nof those vedis just to learn.\n\n523\n00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:42.320\nSo I consider myself lucky to be able to run from the masters there.\n\n524\n00:24:42.320 --> 00:24:44.120\nThis is always fun catching up with you, Endor.\n\n525\n00:24:44.120 --> 00:24:45.720\nAnd I want to have a little more fun.\n\n526\n00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:48.800\nAnd they're going to do a lightning round of Q&A with you.\n\n527\n00:24:48.800 --> 00:24:49.800\nOkay.\n\n528\n00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:51.320\nWhat three words best describe you?\n\n529\n00:24:51.320 --> 00:24:57.680\nCaring, passionate, but driven.\n\n530\n00:24:57.680 --> 00:25:03.920\nIf you could be one person in the world for a day, who would it be and why?\n\n531\n00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:08.110\nI would have liked to have been Nelson Mandela and Robin Silesin for one day\n\n532\n00:25:08.110 --> 00:25:08.440\njust to experience\n\n533\n00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:10.160\nwhat he went through.\n\n534\n00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:15.840\nI went to Robin Silesin about three years ago and to the apartheid museum.\n\n535\n00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:22.840\nAnd I've never come out crying from a trip as I did, that particular trip.\n\n536\n00:25:22.840 --> 00:25:25.760\nYou know, that was a very inspiring trip for me too.\n\n537\n00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:30.250\nI'll never, ever forget the fact that he could live in that room and come out\n\n538\n00:25:30.250 --> 00:25:31.520\nand be so humble\n\n539\n00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:34.520\nand bring everybody together an incredible leader.\n\n540\n00:25:34.520 --> 00:25:39.960\nWhat's something about you, Endor, that few people would know?\n\n541\n00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:46.130\nThat I care more about mentoring and developing other people than anything else\n\n542\n00:25:46.130 --> 00:25:46.440\n.\n\n543\n00:25:46.440 --> 00:25:49.840\nTo me, that is a single most important thing.\n\n544\n00:25:49.840 --> 00:25:55.360\nAnd I just calculated in the last six years in PepsiCo, I gave the world, I\n\n545\n00:25:55.360 --> 00:25:55.720\nthink, nine\n\n546\n00:25:55.720 --> 00:26:00.600\nCEOs, about three CFOs and three CHROs and three CMOs.\n\n547\n00:26:00.600 --> 00:26:05.830\nSo interestingly, I look at that as perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments\n\n548\n00:26:05.830 --> 00:26:06.480\nbecause\n\n549\n00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:07.800\nwe develop those leaders.\n\n550\n00:26:07.800 --> 00:26:10.120\nI feel great about that.\n\n551\n00:26:10.120 --> 00:26:12.840\nThat's a big family tree you can be proud of there.\n\n552\n00:26:12.840 --> 00:26:13.840\nBut you're that way too.\n\n553\n00:26:13.840 --> 00:26:15.960\nYou taught me a lot of that today.\n\n554\n00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:17.800\nDo you have any hidden talents?\n\n555\n00:26:17.800 --> 00:26:18.800\nHidden talents.\n\n556\n00:26:18.800 --> 00:26:23.000\nYou know, I love to ballroom dance.\n\n557\n00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:26.240\nI bet you're great at that.\n\n558\n00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.880\nAnd do you have a favorite quote off the top of your head?\n\n559\n00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:33.360\nThe Martin Luther King's speech, what's your life's blueprint?\n\n560\n00:26:33.360 --> 00:26:38.940\nSix paragraphs was delivered in 1963, I think, or '67 in Barat High School in\n\n561\n00:26:38.940 --> 00:26:40.440\nPhiladelphia.\n\n562\n00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:41.920\nIt's six paragraphs.\n\n563\n00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:44.760\nIt talks about what's your life's blueprint.\n\n564\n00:26:44.760 --> 00:26:50.120\nAnd every word of that one-page speech is a quote I live by.\n\n565\n00:26:50.120 --> 00:26:52.800\nRead that speech almost every week.\n\n566\n00:26:52.800 --> 00:26:58.940\nIt's about how to live life and do the best you can and be as perfect as you\n\n567\n00:26:58.940 --> 00:26:59.840\ncan be.\n\n568\n00:26:59.840 --> 00:27:02.640\nAs defined as by you, the be as perfect as you can be.\n\n569\n00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:12.440\nAnd I read that speech again and again and I say, that is my life's blueprint.\n\n570\n00:27:12.440 --> 00:27:15.900\nWe'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Andrew Newey in just a\n\n571\n00:27:15.900 --> 00:27:16.480\nmoment.\n\n572\n00:27:16.480 --> 00:27:20.590\nIf you want to elevate the people on your team, you have to actually care about\n\n573\n00:27:20.590 --> 00:27:21.000\nthem.\n\n574\n00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:24.360\nThat may sound so elementary, but it's so true.\n\n575\n00:27:24.360 --> 00:27:28.550\nIn my conversation with John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University\n\n576\n00:27:28.550 --> 00:27:29.440\nof Kentucky,\n\n577\n00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:32.240\nyou'll hear how he puts the idea into action.\n\n578\n00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:37.600\nLarry Brown told me, if you care about people, you'll always have a job.\n\n579\n00:27:37.600 --> 00:27:41.510\nAnd if they know you care, you can be aggressive, you can coach them as long as\n\n580\n00:27:41.510 --> 00:27:42.400\nthey know you\n\n581\n00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:43.480\ncare.\n\n582\n00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:47.430\nIf you want to elevate your team and help them be at their best, go listen to\n\n583\n00:27:47.430 --> 00:27:48.400\nmy conversation\n\n584\n00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:50.160\nwith Coach Cal.\n\n585\n00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:58.640\nYou know, I'm going to talk about the world 22 here on How Leaders Lead.\n\n586\n00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:00.720\nCould you just tell us about your upbringing?\n\n587\n00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.200\nNow, where did you grow up?\n\n588\n00:28:02.200 --> 00:28:06.720\nAnd did you have any real pivot moments in your early days?\n\n589\n00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:08.080\nYou know, thank you for that question.\n\n590\n00:28:08.080 --> 00:28:11.980\nI was born and brought up in India, in the south of India, in a city that was\n\n591\n00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:13.040\ncalled Madras,\n\n592\n00:28:13.040 --> 00:28:14.720\nnow called Chennai.\n\n593\n00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:18.280\nAnd I was born and brought up in a very conservative South Indian family, a\n\n594\n00:28:18.280 --> 00:28:19.880\nvery middle-class family.\n\n595\n00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:25.760\nWe were rich in intellect, we were rich in family connections, being together.\n\n596\n00:28:25.760 --> 00:28:27.480\nWe didn't have much money.\n\n597\n00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:30.600\nBut it didn't matter because we didn't know what having money was.\n\n598\n00:28:30.600 --> 00:28:33.920\nWe were very happy with what we had.\n\n599\n00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:39.640\nWe focused on education, we focused on respecting each other, working hard.\n\n600\n00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:43.500\nAnd my grandfather, my paternal grandfather was a very strong figure in our\n\n601\n00:28:43.500 --> 00:28:44.400\nfamily, always\n\n602\n00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:47.400\nbelieved that it didn't matter if you were a girl or a boy.\n\n603\n00:28:47.400 --> 00:28:52.960\nStudy hard, work hard, and always deliver on what you committed to deliver upon\n\n604\n00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:53.280\n.\n\n605\n00:28:53.280 --> 00:28:56.320\nAnd if you did that, your life is going to be set forever.\n\n606\n00:28:56.320 --> 00:29:00.120\nAnd don't be too ambitious, don't be too political, don't always be thinking\n\n607\n00:29:00.120 --> 00:29:00.360\nabout\n\n608\n00:29:00.360 --> 00:29:02.240\nthe next thing you want to do.\n\n609\n00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:07.480\nJust do what you're given, do it well, and do it better than anybody else can\n\n610\n00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:08.160\ndo it.\n\n611\n00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:11.880\nAnd if you did that, the whole world will sit up and take notice.\n\n612\n00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:14.400\nAnd that's the spirit that he inculcated in us.\n\n613\n00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:16.600\nAnd we didn't even know what having money was.\n\n614\n00:29:16.600 --> 00:29:19.440\nWe were happy with the little we had.\n\n615\n00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:22.920\nBut the family was together, the extended family was together.\n\n616\n00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:25.720\nAnd we just built off of each other and just worked hard.\n\n617\n00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:26.720\nThat's all I know.\n\n618\n00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:30.040\nYeah, well, you know, you have that love and support family.\n\n619\n00:29:30.040 --> 00:29:32.160\nThat's a tremendous blessing.\n\n620\n00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:36.290\nAnd you really don't, even though you're upbringing, you may not be that\n\n621\n00:29:36.290 --> 00:29:37.440\nprivileged.\n\n622\n00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:39.600\nYou've got that support to take you with you.\n\n623\n00:29:39.600 --> 00:29:40.600\nThat's fantastic.\n\n624\n00:29:40.600 --> 00:29:41.840\nWe had a different kind of privilege.\n\n625\n00:29:41.840 --> 00:29:44.040\nWe had the privilege of togetherness.\n\n626\n00:29:44.040 --> 00:29:45.560\nYeah, that's great.\n\n627\n00:29:45.560 --> 00:29:47.080\nThat's a great phrase.\n\n628\n00:29:47.080 --> 00:29:49.880\nAnd I know you were huge into education.\n\n629\n00:29:49.880 --> 00:29:53.760\nYou actually got a bachelor's in physics, chemistry, and mathematics.\n\n630\n00:29:53.760 --> 00:29:57.600\nI mean, you know, what else could you have done, Andrew, with your time there?\n\n631\n00:29:57.600 --> 00:29:58.600\nThat's great.\n\n632\n00:29:58.600 --> 00:30:00.720\nWhat made you want to go get an MBA?\n\n633\n00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:06.680\nWell, I graduated from college when I was 18 years old.\n\n634\n00:30:06.680 --> 00:30:08.480\nAnd I graduated from high school when I was 15.\n\n635\n00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:11.960\nI did three years of college because I skipped a year of college.\n\n636\n00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:16.230\nAnd in India, you go on to graduate school immediately after you graduate from\n\n637\n00:30:16.230 --> 00:30:16.960\ncollege.\n\n638\n00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:21.240\nSo at age 18, I went to graduate school in India and graduated the year 20 and\n\n639\n00:30:21.240 --> 00:30:21.600\nstarted\n\n640\n00:30:21.600 --> 00:30:23.080\nto work.\n\n641\n00:30:23.080 --> 00:30:27.070\nAnd you know, you always want to be an overachiever because everybody around\n\n642\n00:30:27.070 --> 00:30:29.120\nyou is an overachiever.\n\n643\n00:30:29.120 --> 00:30:32.360\nAnd everybody is trying to do their absolute best and move ahead.\n\n644\n00:30:32.360 --> 00:30:36.470\nSo for the sake of your family, for the sake of bringing pride to your parents,\n\n645\n00:30:36.470 --> 00:30:37.000\nwhich is\n\n646\n00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:38.760\nreally what we were all motivated by.\n\n647\n00:30:38.760 --> 00:30:39.920\nIt's interesting.\n\n648\n00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:42.360\nWe weren't doing all this for ourselves.\n\n649\n00:30:42.360 --> 00:30:46.320\nWe wanted everybody to say that the parents have brought you up so well.\n\n650\n00:30:46.320 --> 00:30:50.950\nWe did it because we wanted our parents to feel proud and our family to be\n\n651\n00:30:50.950 --> 00:30:51.440\nviewed as\n\n652\n00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:52.800\nawesome.\n\n653\n00:30:52.800 --> 00:30:56.370\nAnd so we all worked very hard, you know, try to get through school and college\n\n654\n00:30:56.370 --> 00:30:56.800\nquickly\n\n655\n00:30:56.800 --> 00:30:58.680\nand started to work.\n\n656\n00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:02.890\nAnd you know, my first job was with the textile company, had a great time,\n\n657\n00:31:02.890 --> 00:31:04.560\nlearned a lot.\n\n658\n00:31:04.560 --> 00:31:08.600\nThen I was a product manager at Johnson & Johnson for personal products.\n\n659\n00:31:08.600 --> 00:31:13.220\nAt a time when India didn't allow advertising of personal products and it was\n\n660\n00:31:13.220 --> 00:31:14.040\nalways sold\n\n661\n00:31:14.040 --> 00:31:15.560\nfrom under the counter.\n\n662\n00:31:15.560 --> 00:31:20.030\nSo I learned a lot about how to sell a product that couldn't be marketed, that\n\n663\n00:31:20.030 --> 00:31:20.440\ncouldn't be\n\n664\n00:31:20.440 --> 00:31:23.440\ntalked about, but was necessary.\n\n665\n00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:29.400\nAnd in both jobs that I was in, I was stretched beyond my wildest imagination.\n\n666\n00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:32.920\nI had mentors who always told me you can do it.\n\n667\n00:31:32.920 --> 00:31:35.280\nEven when I said, \"Oh my God, I have no idea how to do this.\"\n\n668\n00:31:35.280 --> 00:31:36.520\nThey said, \"You can do it.\n\n669\n00:31:36.520 --> 00:31:38.240\nGo figure it out.\"\n\n670\n00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:40.040\nAnd so I went out and figured it out.\n\n671\n00:31:40.040 --> 00:31:41.520\nI worked my tail off.\n\n672\n00:31:41.520 --> 00:31:45.450\nI never left the office until I figured it out because I never wanted to let\n\n673\n00:31:45.450 --> 00:31:46.200\nthe company\n\n674\n00:31:46.200 --> 00:31:47.200\ndown.\n\n675\n00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:49.280\nI didn't want to let my family down.\n\n676\n00:31:49.280 --> 00:31:51.960\nI didn't want to let myself down.\n\n677\n00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:56.960\nAnd so I accelerated through these two companies and then I realized that I\n\n678\n00:31:56.960 --> 00:31:58.000\nreally had not\n\n679\n00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:02.000\nbeen old enough to get a master's degree when I did.\n\n680\n00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:05.180\nAnd that's when I applied to the Yale School of Management and came to the\n\n681\n00:32:05.180 --> 00:32:05.920\nUnited States\n\n682\n00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:09.280\nto get what I call a real master's degree.\n\n683\n00:32:09.280 --> 00:32:14.860\nWell, that had to be just such a dramatic change to go from India to the United\n\n684\n00:32:14.860 --> 00:32:16.240\nStates.\n\n685\n00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:21.050\nWhat was it like to come into a new culture like that and how did you get acc\n\n686\n00:32:21.050 --> 00:32:22.000\nlimated?\n\n687\n00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:28.500\nThe first thing I tell you, I was shocked, surprised, amazed, worried because I\n\n688\n00:32:28.500 --> 00:32:29.040\ndidn't\n\n689\n00:32:29.040 --> 00:32:34.400\nthink my parents would give me permission to come to the United States alone.\n\n690\n00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:38.040\nThe family background that we had, it was very protective.\n\n691\n00:32:38.040 --> 00:32:43.110\nSo when they agreed to allow me to come to Yale to study, I was like, \"Are you\n\n692\n00:32:43.110 --> 00:32:43.720\nsure?\n\n693\n00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:44.880\nYale's not next door.\n\n694\n00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:46.120\nIt's a new haven, Connecticut.\n\n695\n00:32:46.120 --> 00:32:48.600\nI'm going to be 8,000 miles away from you.\"\n\n696\n00:32:48.600 --> 00:32:50.520\nThey said, \"Look, we trust you.\n\n697\n00:32:50.520 --> 00:32:53.240\nGo ahead and strike out on your own.\"\n\n698\n00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:57.690\nSo I want to first say how grateful I am to my parents for buying me that air\n\n699\n00:32:57.690 --> 00:32:58.360\nticket,\n\n700\n00:32:58.360 --> 00:32:59.360\nputting me on that plane.\n\n701\n00:32:59.360 --> 00:33:02.950\nEven though I had a scholarship and loan, the fact that they allowed me to go\n\n702\n00:33:02.950 --> 00:33:03.440\nwas a big\n\n703\n00:33:03.440 --> 00:33:04.440\ndeal.\n\n704\n00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:07.420\nWhen I came to the United States, first of all, I was lonely like hell because\n\n705\n00:33:07.420 --> 00:33:07.800\nI never\n\n706\n00:33:07.800 --> 00:33:09.960\ntraveled outside the country.\n\n707\n00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:13.040\nAnd it took a while getting used to everything.\n\n708\n00:33:13.040 --> 00:33:14.200\nI was a vegetarian.\n\n709\n00:33:14.200 --> 00:33:17.800\nI didn't know how to get vegetarian food and new haven at that time.\n\n710\n00:33:17.800 --> 00:33:23.770\nAnd Yale at that time in 1978 didn't have a mechanism to integrate\n\n711\n00:33:23.770 --> 00:33:25.200\ninternational students\n\n712\n00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:26.200\neasily.\n\n713\n00:33:26.200 --> 00:33:30.400\nNow it's fantastic, but then it wasn't that systematized.\n\n714\n00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:33.440\nYou know, the first couple of weeks were dreadful.\n\n715\n00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:35.680\nI wanted to hop on the plane and go back.\n\n716\n00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:37.240\nI didn't know what to do.\n\n717\n00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:38.400\nBut you know what?\n\n718\n00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:43.880\nLittle by little, the other students at Yale reached out, a host family reached\n\n719\n00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:44.440\nout.\n\n720\n00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:48.390\nOther international students got together and built ourselves a little\n\n721\n00:33:48.390 --> 00:33:49.240\necosystem.\n\n722\n00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:54.240\nAnd before the month was done, I was as American as the others.\n\n723\n00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:57.760\nAnd this is the amazing thing about the United States.\n\n724\n00:33:57.760 --> 00:34:03.040\nHow we reach out and embrace people who are completely different than us.\n\n725\n00:34:03.040 --> 00:34:06.440\nAnd I tell you, that was just a wonderful, wonderful time.\n\n726\n00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:08.720\nAnd I never looked back from those days.\n\n727\n00:34:08.720 --> 00:34:10.950\nYou know how you were talking about how your parents gave the opportunity to\n\n728\n00:34:10.950 --> 00:34:11.280\ncome to the\n\n729\n00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:13.440\nUnited States and you could possibly strike out?\n\n730\n00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:15.040\nThat's a baseball metaphor.\n\n731\n00:34:15.040 --> 00:34:18.920\nI happen to know you are an incredible baseball fan.\n\n732\n00:34:18.920 --> 00:34:19.920\nNow how did that happen?\n\n733\n00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:22.160\nWell, you see, I used to play cricket when I was in India.\n\n734\n00:34:22.160 --> 00:34:23.720\nIt was a bat and ball sport.\n\n735\n00:34:23.720 --> 00:34:28.930\nAnd when I landed in the United States, I had to be involved or learn or watch\n\n736\n00:34:28.930 --> 00:34:29.400\na bat\n\n737\n00:34:29.400 --> 00:34:30.760\nand ball sport.\n\n738\n00:34:30.760 --> 00:34:35.900\nAnd this was 1978, the big year that, remember, the Yankees being 14 games\n\n739\n00:34:35.900 --> 00:34:36.840\nbehind the red\n\n740\n00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:41.240\nsocks and then catching up in the big, bucky, dead game.\n\n741\n00:34:41.240 --> 00:34:43.200\nThen they went on to win the World Series.\n\n742\n00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:46.640\nSo I sat there in the dorm room, in the common room.\n\n743\n00:34:46.640 --> 00:34:49.440\nAnd the other kids explained baseball to me.\n\n744\n00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:51.760\nAnd I fell in love with the New York Yankees.\n\n745\n00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:54.000\nI didn't fall in love with baseball as a whole.\n\n746\n00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:55.600\nI fell in love with the Yankees.\n\n747\n00:34:55.600 --> 00:34:59.800\nAnd that love affair with the Yankees has not died even today.\n\n748\n00:34:59.800 --> 00:35:04.240\nAnd since then, I've been a die-hard Yankees fan through thick and thin.\n\n749\n00:35:04.240 --> 00:35:08.120\nAnd I follow them all the time and they're in my blood.\n\n750\n00:35:08.120 --> 00:35:10.520\nAnd I love, love, love watching them play.\n\n751\n00:35:10.520 --> 00:35:14.780\nNow after you got your NBA at Yale, you started out in the consulting world at\n\n752\n00:35:14.780 --> 00:35:15.880\nBoston Consulting\n\n753\n00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:16.880\nGroup.\n\n754\n00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:20.880\nWhat were your key learnings from going into an environment like that?\n\n755\n00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:25.600\nObviously, a lot of high-powered IQ points in that company.\n\n756\n00:35:25.600 --> 00:35:28.950\nGetting into consulting was considered sort of a feather in people's cap\n\n757\n00:35:28.950 --> 00:35:29.600\nbecause it was\n\n758\n00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:33.120\nso hard to get into a Boston Consulting Group or a McKinsey or a Booz Allen in\n\n759\n00:35:33.120 --> 00:35:33.520\nthose\n\n760\n00:35:33.520 --> 00:35:34.520\ndays.\n\n761\n00:35:34.520 --> 00:35:37.360\nAnd everybody interviewed and very few got in.\n\n762\n00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:42.850\nAnd so I was scared to even interview because I had no idea where that'd get in\n\n763\n00:35:42.850 --> 00:35:43.040\n.\n\n764\n00:35:43.040 --> 00:35:45.840\nBut you go through these seven, eight, ten interviews.\n\n765\n00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:47.600\nEach one is a case study.\n\n766\n00:35:47.600 --> 00:35:51.400\nAnd I got through the system and I joined Boston Consulting Group.\n\n767\n00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:56.570\nAnd I must tell you, in my six and a half years at BCG, I probably learned the\n\n768\n00:35:56.570 --> 00:35:57.480\nequivalent\n\n769\n00:35:57.480 --> 00:36:03.030\nof 15 years in a regular corporate job because I learned multiple industries,\n\n770\n00:36:03.030 --> 00:36:05.120\nmultiple issues,\n\n771\n00:36:05.120 --> 00:36:09.440\ndealt with multiple levels of the client, dealt with strategy issues at the 25,\n\n772\n00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:10.160\n000 foot\n\n773\n00:36:10.160 --> 00:36:15.540\nlevel and operating issues at the ground level, dealt with friendly clients and\n\n774\n00:36:15.540 --> 00:36:17.240\nhostile clients.\n\n775\n00:36:17.240 --> 00:36:20.520\nSo it was sort of indoctrination by fire David.\n\n776\n00:36:20.520 --> 00:36:26.060\nAnd working with a group of consultants who are so smart and so brilliant, sort\n\n777\n00:36:26.060 --> 00:36:26.880\nof raised\n\n778\n00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:28.440\nyour game.\n\n779\n00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:32.720\nAnd the time that I was at BCG was invaluable.\n\n780\n00:36:32.720 --> 00:36:37.270\nAnd I think I learned so much in such a short period that I wouldn't trade that\n\n781\n00:36:37.270 --> 00:36:38.120\nexperience\n\n782\n00:36:38.120 --> 00:36:39.480\nfor anything in the world.\n\n783\n00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:42.630\nFrom that, what did you really glean in terms of what a consultant should\n\n784\n00:36:42.630 --> 00:36:43.400\nreally provide\n\n785\n00:36:43.400 --> 00:36:44.960\na client?\n\n786\n00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:49.870\nThe first thing, a consultant is not brought in because of the knowledge of the\n\n787\n00:36:49.870 --> 00:36:50.920\nindustry.\n\n788\n00:36:50.920 --> 00:36:54.760\nThey're not brought in just because they're objective because you can ask any\n\n789\n00:36:54.760 --> 00:36:55.200\nman on the\n\n790\n00:36:55.200 --> 00:36:59.040\nroad or woman on the road and they'll give you an objective perspective.\n\n791\n00:36:59.040 --> 00:37:03.480\nConsultants are brought in to provide frameworks, provide you a way of thinking\n\n792\n00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:04.360\n, provide the\n\n793\n00:37:04.360 --> 00:37:11.840\ncompany a framework that challenges status quo in the company or reaffirms the\n\n794\n00:37:11.840 --> 00:37:12.480\nway things\n\n795\n00:37:12.480 --> 00:37:14.160\nare being done in the company.\n\n796\n00:37:14.160 --> 00:37:18.640\nToo often we think the consultancy expert is going to give us the answer.\n\n797\n00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:24.730\nWhat I learned in my consulting time is how do you develop frameworks to help\n\n798\n00:37:24.730 --> 00:37:25.040\ncompanies\n\n799\n00:37:25.040 --> 00:37:26.640\ngo through a thought process?\n\n800\n00:37:26.640 --> 00:37:31.160\nAnd that framework was developed based on a rich understanding of the firm\n\n801\n00:37:31.160 --> 00:37:32.040\nitself based\n\n802\n00:37:32.040 --> 00:37:34.000\non all the work they've done.\n\n803\n00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:37.030\nBut my own understanding based on the work that I had done and I watched my\n\n804\n00:37:37.030 --> 00:37:37.680\ntime through\n\n805\n00:37:37.680 --> 00:37:42.800\nBCG, my frameworks got more rigorous, more well thought through, more client\n\n806\n00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:43.880\nsensitive.\n\n807\n00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:44.880\nThat's great.\n\n808\n00:37:44.880 --> 00:37:49.290\nWhen you came to PepsiCo, you hit the ground running and you quickly became the\n\n809\n00:37:49.290 --> 00:37:49.800\nCFO.\n\n810\n00:37:49.800 --> 00:37:54.160\nI don't think many people really recognize this, but you were really the\n\n811\n00:37:54.160 --> 00:37:55.040\narchitect of\n\n812\n00:37:55.040 --> 00:38:01.720\nspinning off pizza and Taco Bell and KFC, which I had the privilege of running.\n\n813\n00:38:01.720 --> 00:38:06.320\nPepsiCo at the time had those three divisions plus free to lay and Pepsi.\n\n814\n00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:11.360\nThat was a huge decision and you convinced Roger and Rico, who was the CEO at\n\n815\n00:38:11.360 --> 00:38:12.200\nthat time,\n\n816\n00:38:12.200 --> 00:38:15.480\nhow to do it and you had to convince a lot of other people that this made sense\n\n817\n00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:15.680\n.\n\n818\n00:38:15.680 --> 00:38:17.400\nHow did you go through that process?\n\n819\n00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:22.460\nAgain, it comes back to this notion of don't just start with the predetermined\n\n820\n00:38:22.460 --> 00:38:23.320\nconclusion\n\n821\n00:38:23.320 --> 00:38:25.520\nthat the restaurants had to be spun off.\n\n822\n00:38:25.520 --> 00:38:29.000\nWe knew that the restaurant operating system was very different.\n\n823\n00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:33.280\nAnd as you remember, David, you and I worked very closely together.\n\n824\n00:38:33.280 --> 00:38:36.520\nThe restaurant operating system was different in many ways.\n\n825\n00:38:36.520 --> 00:38:39.820\nWhat we were doing was we were trying to move it to a packaged goods culture,\n\n826\n00:38:39.820 --> 00:38:40.400\neven though\n\n827\n00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:42.440\nit was a service business.\n\n828\n00:38:42.440 --> 00:38:47.200\nAnd it was two operating systems that co-existent this PepsiCo system.\n\n829\n00:38:47.200 --> 00:38:50.490\nSo the first thing we had to do was rather than just say, we ought to spin out\n\n830\n00:38:50.490 --> 00:38:51.920\nthe restaurants,\n\n831\n00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:55.280\nunderstand the restaurant business, understand what's the future of the\n\n832\n00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:56.600\nrestaurant business,\n\n833\n00:38:56.600 --> 00:39:00.710\nwhat's needed to be successful in the restaurant business, why can't PepsiCo be\n\n834\n00:39:00.710 --> 00:39:01.440\nsuccessful\n\n835\n00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.640\nin the business?\n\n836\n00:39:02.640 --> 00:39:07.280\nAnd we had to do that deep analysis so that we could convince people on facts,\n\n837\n00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:07.560\nnot on\n\n838\n00:39:07.560 --> 00:39:11.800\nemotion, because analysts at that time were saying, just spin it off.\n\n839\n00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:12.800\nBut you know what?\n\n840\n00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:16.610\nYou don't give away one of your children because the restaurant's business was\n\n841\n00:39:16.610 --> 00:39:17.040\ngrown\n\n842\n00:39:17.040 --> 00:39:21.020\nin PepsiCo and everybody in restaurants where PepsiCo people that we all loved\n\n843\n00:39:21.020 --> 00:39:21.600\nhad great\n\n844\n00:39:21.600 --> 00:39:23.240\nrelationships with.\n\n845\n00:39:23.240 --> 00:39:27.790\nSo in order to come up with any decision regarding restaurants, whether to keep\n\n846\n00:39:27.790 --> 00:39:28.440\nit, improve its\n\n847\n00:39:28.440 --> 00:39:32.660\nperformance, operate it differently or spin it out, we had to understand the\n\n848\n00:39:32.660 --> 00:39:34.360\nbusiness cold.\n\n849\n00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:41.050\nSo for six months in a very small circle, we embarked on a very deep strategic\n\n850\n00:39:41.050 --> 00:39:41.960\nanalysis\n\n851\n00:39:41.960 --> 00:39:43.760\nof the QSR industry.\n\n852\n00:39:43.760 --> 00:39:44.760\nWhat was going on?\n\n853\n00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:45.840\nWhat are the trends?\n\n854\n00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:52.160\nHow is this whole new build versus franchise versus operating by the company?\n\n855\n00:39:52.160 --> 00:39:54.000\nHow is that model changing?\n\n856\n00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:56.360\nHow are the economics of restaurant management changing?\n\n857\n00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:59.120\nWhat kind of people should be in restaurants?\n\n858\n00:39:59.120 --> 00:40:03.620\nAnd again, using the consulting analogy, visited restaurants, spoke to owners,\n\n859\n00:40:03.620 --> 00:40:04.040\nspoke\n\n860\n00:40:04.040 --> 00:40:09.880\nto franchisees, watched franchisees at work as opposed to company people at\n\n861\n00:40:09.880 --> 00:40:10.360\nwork.\n\n862\n00:40:10.360 --> 00:40:15.150\nYou know, understood the business ground up, understood the economics,\n\n863\n00:40:15.150 --> 00:40:16.200\nunderstood the future\n\n864\n00:40:16.200 --> 00:40:17.200\ncold.\n\n865\n00:40:17.200 --> 00:40:22.440\nAnd it led us to the conclusion that not to spin out the restaurant, that's not\n\n866\n00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:23.000\nthe word\n\n867\n00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:24.000\nI would use.\n\n868\n00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:28.840\nI say we decided to unfetter the restaurant business from the rest of PepsiCo.\n\n869\n00:40:28.840 --> 00:40:33.670\nPretty important because it was a wonderful business, but it was in fact\n\n870\n00:40:33.670 --> 00:40:34.280\nprisoner to the\n\n871\n00:40:34.280 --> 00:40:36.640\npackaged goods culture.\n\n872\n00:40:36.640 --> 00:40:39.950\nAnd when we unfettered the restaurant from the packaged goods culture and\n\n873\n00:40:39.950 --> 00:40:40.560\nallowed you\n\n874\n00:40:40.560 --> 00:40:45.920\nto be who you were and put the right leadership, i.e. you, all of a sudden the\n\n875\n00:40:45.920 --> 00:40:47.280\ncompany thrived\n\n876\n00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:52.760\nbecause you enhanced that service culture, you enhanced the operating model and\n\n877\n00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:53.080\nit was\n\n878\n00:40:53.080 --> 00:40:57.980\none of the best performing stocks and enhanced the shareholder value of\n\n879\n00:40:57.980 --> 00:40:58.840\nexisting PepsiCo\n\n880\n00:40:58.840 --> 00:41:01.920\nshareholders and all the new Yum shareholders that came in.\n\n881\n00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:03.800\nSo I think it was a big win-win.\n\n882\n00:41:03.800 --> 00:41:04.800\nAbsolutely.\n\n883\n00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:06.480\nAnd I thank you very much for it.\n\n884\n00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:08.560\nI had the time of my life building that company.\n\n885\n00:41:08.560 --> 00:41:09.560\nIt's great.\n\n886\n00:41:09.560 --> 00:41:13.520\nWhat anxieties did you have personally as a leader stepping into a role like\n\n887\n00:41:13.520 --> 00:41:14.040\nthat?\n\n888\n00:41:14.040 --> 00:41:21.200\nYou see, the period from 2001 to 2006 was the glory days of the CPG world.\n\n889\n00:41:21.200 --> 00:41:24.520\nWalmart was growing in leaps and bounds.\n\n890\n00:41:24.520 --> 00:41:27.200\nThe developed world was doing very well.\n\n891\n00:41:27.200 --> 00:41:29.200\nEmerging markets were only then emerging.\n\n892\n00:41:29.200 --> 00:41:32.080\nChina, India were just emerging.\n\n893\n00:41:32.080 --> 00:41:36.680\nBut it was a glorious time where everything was coming up roses.\n\n894\n00:41:36.680 --> 00:41:41.680\nYet, as I looked at the economy, as I looked at the trends, I realized that we\n\n895\n00:41:41.680 --> 00:41:42.280\nwere in\n\n896\n00:41:42.280 --> 00:41:43.520\nfor rocky times.\n\n897\n00:41:43.520 --> 00:41:46.000\nI saw Walmart slowing down in growth.\n\n898\n00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:50.520\nI saw a looming financial crisis because of the excessive leverage in the\n\n899\n00:41:50.520 --> 00:41:51.280\nsystem.\n\n900\n00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:56.400\nI saw tremendous growth in the emerging markets where we were underrepresented.\n\n901\n00:41:56.400 --> 00:42:00.150\nSo I'm sitting here going, \"How are we going to navigate as a company through\n\n902\n00:42:00.150 --> 00:42:00.520\nall these\n\n903\n00:42:00.520 --> 00:42:02.200\nchanges?\"\n\n904\n00:42:02.200 --> 00:42:06.130\nAnd while we had to deal with all these external changes, internally in the\n\n905\n00:42:06.130 --> 00:42:07.480\ncompany, our bottling\n\n906\n00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:11.360\nsystem was behaving in interesting ways.\n\n907\n00:42:11.360 --> 00:42:14.160\nWe had to address that.\n\n908\n00:42:14.160 --> 00:42:18.540\nWe had to figure out how to do all this without having the investors say, \"Hey,\n\n909\n00:42:18.540 --> 00:42:19.240\nwhy aren't\n\n910\n00:42:19.240 --> 00:42:23.040\nyou delivering the kind of returns that we expect from PepsiCo?\"\n\n911\n00:42:23.040 --> 00:42:25.680\nSo there was a lot of anxiety when I took over.\n\n912\n00:42:25.680 --> 00:42:29.120\nAnd I realized that I could have all the anxieties inside.\n\n913\n00:42:29.120 --> 00:42:36.020\nBut to the company, I had to project confidence, optimism, a can-do spirit, and\n\n914\n00:42:36.020 --> 00:42:38.040\na must-do resolve.\n\n915\n00:42:38.040 --> 00:42:41.760\nSo it was tough times, I must say.\n\n916\n00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:45.830\nWhen you have this macro environment that's right out there and you're the CEO\n\n917\n00:42:45.830 --> 00:42:46.280\nand you\n\n918\n00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:50.950\nwant to project this, did you have any tricks that you would use to get\n\n919\n00:42:50.950 --> 00:42:52.360\nyourself all ready\n\n920\n00:42:52.360 --> 00:42:55.840\nto go to project what you had to project as a leader even though you had some\n\n921\n00:42:55.840 --> 00:42:56.360\nof these\n\n922\n00:42:56.360 --> 00:42:57.360\nconcerns?\n\n923\n00:42:57.360 --> 00:43:02.800\nWell, the one thing I've learned is don't lie to the people.\n\n924\n00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:06.800\nDon't tell your people one thing when the reality is something different.\n\n925\n00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:10.920\nSo I confronted the truth with my people and said, \"Hey, this is the nature of\n\n926\n00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:11.640\nthe environment\n\n927\n00:43:11.640 --> 00:43:12.640\nin front of us.\n\n928\n00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:15.840\nLet's all make sure we all understand it together because we're going to have\n\n929\n00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:16.440\nto navigate it\n\n930\n00:43:16.440 --> 00:43:17.440\ntogether.\n\n931\n00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:20.480\nBut it's not enough to tell them what the environment is going to look like.\n\n932\n00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:25.000\nI also had to tell them exactly what we were going to do.\n\n933\n00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.240\nWhat we were going to do in the short term, medium term, and long term.\n\n934\n00:43:29.240 --> 00:43:32.480\nI told them in the short term what they needed to do just to keep the\n\n935\n00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:33.680\nperformance going.\n\n936\n00:43:33.680 --> 00:43:37.320\nIn the medium term, what kind of acquisitions we were going to make to bolster\n\n937\n00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:37.880\nthe company's\n\n938\n00:43:37.880 --> 00:43:43.420\nportfolio in emerging and developing markets and for the long term, what were\n\n939\n00:43:43.420 --> 00:43:44.040\nwe going\n\n940\n00:43:44.040 --> 00:43:49.020\nto do today to invest in R&D, to start the portfolio transformation, to put in\n\n941\n00:43:49.020 --> 00:43:49.480\nplace\n\n942\n00:43:49.480 --> 00:43:54.980\nmultiple initiatives which will not pay out today but require investment today\n\n943\n00:43:54.980 --> 00:43:55.160\nto pay\n\n944\n00:43:55.160 --> 00:43:56.800\nout in the long term?\"\n\n945\n00:43:56.800 --> 00:44:00.150\nNow I was scared, David, because I didn't know whether people would subscribe\n\n946\n00:44:00.150 --> 00:44:01.680\nto this.\n\n947\n00:44:01.680 --> 00:44:05.280\nWhat surprised me the most was they did.\n\n948\n00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:08.890\nThey were in fact relieved that that's what we were going to do because we're\n\n949\n00:44:08.890 --> 00:44:09.560\nall seeing\n\n950\n00:44:09.560 --> 00:44:10.560\nthe trends.\n\n951\n00:44:10.560 --> 00:44:11.560\nThey were just happy-\n\n952\n00:44:11.560 --> 00:44:12.560\nRight.\n\n953\n00:44:12.560 --> 00:44:15.000\nI knew you didn't have your head in the sand and that you got it and then that\n\n954\n00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:15.480\ngave them\n\n955\n00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:19.000\nconfidence that you could go into the future together.\n\n956\n00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:23.530\nYou know, Andrew, one of the things that you really espouses, the importance of\n\n957\n00:44:23.530 --> 00:44:24.400\ncorporations\n\n958\n00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:30.080\nmaking a difference in the world and that we can really do that.\n\n959\n00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:34.220\nAnd you really embarked on for a number of years this whole idea of performance\n\n960\n00:44:34.220 --> 00:44:34.560\nwith\n\n961\n00:44:34.560 --> 00:44:35.760\npurpose.\n\n962\n00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:39.880\nWhat do you mean by that and how did you get to that?\n\n963\n00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:47.640\nI've, performance of purpose has been the driving principle of this company.\n\n964\n00:44:47.640 --> 00:44:50.570\nAnd I tell you, it's a profound set of words because initially people would say\n\n965\n00:44:50.570 --> 00:44:50.960\n, \"Oh, this\n\n966\n00:44:50.960 --> 00:44:53.920\nis about corporate social responsibility.\n\n967\n00:44:53.920 --> 00:44:55.000\nIt's not.\"\n\n968\n00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:58.840\nBecause CSR by itself is, \"How do you spend the money you make?\n\n969\n00:44:58.840 --> 00:45:01.920\nYou know, where do you give to some charitable causes?\"\n\n970\n00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:06.330\nTo me, performance of purpose was, \"How do you drive performance with the\n\n971\n00:45:06.330 --> 00:45:07.040\ndeliberate\n\n972\n00:45:07.040 --> 00:45:11.000\nsense of purpose which enhances the delivery of performance?\"\n\n973\n00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:12.960\nSo it was a virtuous circle.\n\n974\n00:45:12.960 --> 00:45:15.680\nAnd purpose in my mind had three elements to it.\n\n975\n00:45:15.680 --> 00:45:18.800\nThe first was human sustainability.\n\n976\n00:45:18.800 --> 00:45:21.880\nHow do you transform this product portfolio?\n\n977\n00:45:21.880 --> 00:45:27.400\nSo going into the future, it was future-proofed and kept growing.\n\n978\n00:45:27.400 --> 00:45:29.880\nThe second part was environmental sustainability.\n\n979\n00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:34.280\nHow do you make sure that you reduce your carbon footprint, reduce water usage?\n\n980\n00:45:34.280 --> 00:45:39.760\nBecause if you did that, your lower costs and societies give you a license to\n\n981\n00:45:39.760 --> 00:45:40.600\noperate.\n\n982\n00:45:40.600 --> 00:45:44.640\nBecause if you use a lot of water and your plant is in a water distressed area,\n\n983\n00:45:44.640 --> 00:45:44.840\npeople\n\n984\n00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:45.840\nwill throw you out.\n\n985\n00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:48.640\nAnd the third part was talent sustainability.\n\n986\n00:45:48.640 --> 00:45:51.460\nHow do you make sure you have an environment where you bring the best and\n\n987\n00:45:51.460 --> 00:45:52.200\nbrightest into\n\n988\n00:45:52.200 --> 00:45:53.300\nPepsiCo?\n\n989\n00:45:53.300 --> 00:45:57.440\nAnd simply put, you cannot deliver performance unless you transform the product\n\n990\n00:45:57.440 --> 00:45:58.040\nportfolio\n\n991\n00:45:58.040 --> 00:46:00.500\nbecause the consumer was changing.\n\n992\n00:46:00.500 --> 00:46:03.710\nIf you don't get a license to operate from society, which is part of\n\n993\n00:46:03.710 --> 00:46:05.560\nenvironmental sustainability,\n\n994\n00:46:05.560 --> 00:46:07.580\nyou can't deliver performance.\n\n995\n00:46:07.580 --> 00:46:11.060\nAnd if you don't have great people, you can't deliver performance.\n\n996\n00:46:11.060 --> 00:46:16.590\nSo to me, profits, product, planet and people is what the ecosystem is all\n\n997\n00:46:16.590 --> 00:46:17.380\nabout.\n\n998\n00:46:17.380 --> 00:46:18.420\nAnd why did I do it?\n\n999\n00:46:18.420 --> 00:46:22.780\nI honestly believe companies are like little republics.\n\n1000\n00:46:22.780 --> 00:46:27.460\nAnd given our market cap, we are the 37th largest country in the world.\n\n1001\n00:46:27.460 --> 00:46:31.300\nAnd we are a company which has global governance.\n\n1002\n00:46:31.300 --> 00:46:33.300\nAnd countries don't have global governance.\n\n1003\n00:46:33.300 --> 00:46:35.060\nThey have country governance.\n\n1004\n00:46:35.060 --> 00:46:37.940\nSo we can actually lift and shift best practices.\n\n1005\n00:46:37.940 --> 00:46:43.500\nWe can leverage our powerful distribution systems, do so much to help countries\n\n1006\n00:46:43.500 --> 00:46:44.020\naround\n\n1007\n00:46:44.020 --> 00:46:49.060\nthe world to address their issues, which in turn creates more consumers for our\n\n1008\n00:46:49.060 --> 00:46:49.980\nproducts.\n\n1009\n00:46:49.980 --> 00:46:54.520\nSo I honestly believe that if we wanted to be the good company, good\n\n1010\n00:46:54.520 --> 00:46:55.300\ncommercially, good\n\n1011\n00:46:55.300 --> 00:47:02.450\nethically, we had to embrace performance with purpose in order to do our duty\n\n1012\n00:47:02.450 --> 00:47:03.300\nas a responsible\n\n1013\n00:47:03.300 --> 00:47:06.660\nmultinational in every country in which we operated.\n\n1014\n00:47:06.660 --> 00:47:11.140\nAnd I felt that that was the only way corporations should behave.\n\n1015\n00:47:11.140 --> 00:47:14.500\nAnd that's why performance with purpose was born in 2006.\n\n1016\n00:47:14.500 --> 00:47:16.740\nIt has sustained even today.\n\n1017\n00:47:16.740 --> 00:47:20.110\nAnd if you ask anybody in PepsiCo, they'll tell you that's why they're still at\n\n1018\n00:47:20.110 --> 00:47:20.780\nPepsiCo.\n\n1019\n00:47:20.780 --> 00:47:21.780\nThat's great.\n\n1020\n00:47:21.780 --> 00:47:24.900\nAnd I think that people don't want to go to work every day to be a part of\n\n1021\n00:47:24.900 --> 00:47:26.620\nsomething mediocre.\n\n1022\n00:47:26.620 --> 00:47:30.810\nThey want to go to work every day to be a part of something they're proud of\n\n1023\n00:47:30.810 --> 00:47:31.460\nand really\n\n1024\n00:47:31.460 --> 00:47:32.780\nwork on greatness.\n\n1025\n00:47:32.780 --> 00:47:36.460\nAnd I think that's a very aspirational vision for your company.\n\n1026\n00:47:36.460 --> 00:47:40.340\nNow, I know along the way you developed a framework.\n\n1027\n00:47:40.340 --> 00:47:44.040\nOne of the frameworks that you learned maybe from your consulting days or the\n\n1028\n00:47:44.040 --> 00:47:44.740\nimportance\n\n1029\n00:47:44.740 --> 00:47:48.950\nof the framework where you decide to categorize PepsiCo products is fun for you\n\n1030\n00:47:48.950 --> 00:47:49.740\n, better for\n\n1031\n00:47:49.740 --> 00:47:51.860\nyou and good for you.\n\n1032\n00:47:51.860 --> 00:47:56.020\nAnd this put each of the products into one of those buckets.\n\n1033\n00:47:56.020 --> 00:47:59.340\nNow, what was your thinking behind that?\n\n1034\n00:47:59.340 --> 00:48:03.940\nThe product portfolio is so broad and so diverse.\n\n1035\n00:48:03.940 --> 00:48:09.020\nAnd I felt that PepsiCo sometimes is viewed as a soda and chips company.\n\n1036\n00:48:09.020 --> 00:48:12.900\nWhen in reality, we had a wide variety of products.\n\n1037\n00:48:12.900 --> 00:48:16.140\nThe good for you products were products with positive nutrition, products with\n\n1038\n00:48:16.140 --> 00:48:16.500\ngrains,\n\n1039\n00:48:16.500 --> 00:48:20.860\nfruit and vegetable, protein, sports, nutrition.\n\n1040\n00:48:20.860 --> 00:48:22.620\nThat's what we call good for you.\n\n1041\n00:48:22.620 --> 00:48:28.660\nA fun for you on the other hand was your sodas, full sugar sodas, your laze,\n\n1042\n00:48:28.660 --> 00:48:29.660\nDoritos, all\n\n1043\n00:48:29.660 --> 00:48:31.220\nof that was your fun for you products.\n\n1044\n00:48:31.220 --> 00:48:35.240\nWhen you had a diet product, which was a soda with zero calorie, that was a\n\n1045\n00:48:35.240 --> 00:48:36.020\nbetter for you\n\n1046\n00:48:36.020 --> 00:48:37.380\nproduct.\n\n1047\n00:48:37.380 --> 00:48:42.800\nAnd so our goal was invest in all three, but dial up the better for you and\n\n1048\n00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:44.660\ngood for you.\n\n1049\n00:48:44.660 --> 00:48:48.660\nNow we're not thinking as evolved, David, in the better for you category.\n\n1050\n00:48:48.660 --> 00:48:52.980\nEarlier, better for you was versus the fun for you.\n\n1051\n00:48:52.980 --> 00:48:55.900\nSo if it was a zero calorie product, it was better for you.\n\n1052\n00:48:55.900 --> 00:48:58.140\nIf it had reduced sugar, it was better for you.\n\n1053\n00:48:58.140 --> 00:49:01.940\nBut it was always relative to the fun for you.\n\n1054\n00:49:01.940 --> 00:49:07.620\nRecently, though, we've said, let's make the definition more science based and\n\n1055\n00:49:07.620 --> 00:49:09.940\nuse externally\n\n1056\n00:49:09.940 --> 00:49:12.140\ndeveloped criteria.\n\n1057\n00:49:12.140 --> 00:49:18.050\nSo externally, they say products which have so much saturated fat is considered\n\n1058\n00:49:18.050 --> 00:49:19.460\nall right.\n\n1059\n00:49:19.460 --> 00:49:22.820\nProducts with this level of sodium is okay.\n\n1060\n00:49:22.820 --> 00:49:25.820\nProducts with this level of sugar is okay to consume.\n\n1061\n00:49:25.820 --> 00:49:31.980\nThen we use those criteria to define what we call our guilt free portfolio,\n\n1062\n00:49:31.980 --> 00:49:32.980\nwhich include\n\n1063\n00:49:32.980 --> 00:49:37.220\nproducts with positive nutrition like Quaker roads and Tropicana juice and\n\n1064\n00:49:37.220 --> 00:49:37.980\nproducts that\n\n1065\n00:49:37.980 --> 00:49:43.050\nscientific authorities like the WHO, the Institute of Medicine have deemed\n\n1066\n00:49:43.050 --> 00:49:44.060\nadequate levels or\n\n1067\n00:49:44.060 --> 00:49:48.100\nacceptable levels of sugar, fat, and salt.\n\n1068\n00:49:48.100 --> 00:49:51.900\nAnd so we've now defined the portfolio in a broader way.\n\n1069\n00:49:51.900 --> 00:49:56.010\nAnd we are working the whole portfolio to move more and more from fun for you\n\n1070\n00:49:56.010 --> 00:49:56.620\nto guilt free\n\n1071\n00:49:56.620 --> 00:49:57.860\nproducts.\n\n1072\n00:49:57.860 --> 00:49:59.860\nAnd the idea is enjoy our products.\n\n1073\n00:49:59.860 --> 00:50:00.860\nAbsolutely.\n\n1074\n00:50:00.860 --> 00:50:04.940\nYou make great tasting food in all different venues, which is fantastic.\n\n1075\n00:50:04.940 --> 00:50:08.840\nI know, though, one of the challenges you had when you went for this\n\n1076\n00:50:08.840 --> 00:50:09.980\ntransformation is\n\n1077\n00:50:09.980 --> 00:50:14.910\nyou've got Pepsi and Lays potato chips and Doritos, which are the fun for you\n\n1078\n00:50:14.910 --> 00:50:16.060\nproducts.\n\n1079\n00:50:16.060 --> 00:50:19.500\nAs you're trying to transform the company, move into the better for you or the\n\n1080\n00:50:19.500 --> 00:50:19.940\narea where\n\n1081\n00:50:19.940 --> 00:50:23.900\nyou know the consumers going, you had a lot of people saying, \"Hey, don't you\n\n1082\n00:50:23.900 --> 00:50:24.220\nbelieve\n\n1083\n00:50:24.220 --> 00:50:26.100\nin our core products?\"\n\n1084\n00:50:26.100 --> 00:50:27.540\nAnd how did you handle that?\n\n1085\n00:50:27.540 --> 00:50:32.370\nOh boy, that was a tough times, David, because I'm a full sugar Pepsi drinker\n\n1086\n00:50:32.370 --> 00:50:32.900\nand I eat a\n\n1087\n00:50:32.900 --> 00:50:34.740\nbag of Lays every day.\n\n1088\n00:50:34.740 --> 00:50:37.420\nSo I actually love those products.\n\n1089\n00:50:37.420 --> 00:50:42.400\nAnd people who complain to me that I should not transform the portfolio invest\n\n1090\n00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:42.940\nin what\n\n1091\n00:50:42.940 --> 00:50:43.940\nwe have today.\n\n1092\n00:50:43.940 --> 00:50:45.260\nI did something very simple.\n\n1093\n00:50:45.260 --> 00:50:48.640\nI said to them, \"Look, guys, let's look at the products that deplete when we\n\n1094\n00:50:48.640 --> 00:50:49.100\nhave our\n\n1095\n00:50:49.100 --> 00:50:50.940\nmeetings.\"\n\n1096\n00:50:50.940 --> 00:50:56.720\nWhen we were in the 1990s, everybody was drinking full sugar Pepsi and dew and\n\n1097\n00:50:56.720 --> 00:50:57.740\nCierimist and\n\n1098\n00:50:57.740 --> 00:50:59.140\nthings like that.\n\n1099\n00:50:59.140 --> 00:51:05.580\nAs you go to the 2000-2006, if I look to the depletion rate, it was more diet\n\n1100\n00:51:05.580 --> 00:51:06.460\nPepsi, Pepsi\n\n1101\n00:51:06.460 --> 00:51:07.460\nMax.\n\n1102\n00:51:07.460 --> 00:51:11.820\nAnd as you go to 2006-2007, the trend shifted again.\n\n1103\n00:51:11.820 --> 00:51:13.660\nWe were consuming more aquafina.\n\n1104\n00:51:13.660 --> 00:51:18.060\nI said to them, \"Hang on a second, if we are changing our own eating and\n\n1105\n00:51:18.060 --> 00:51:19.340\ndrinking habits,\n\n1106\n00:51:19.340 --> 00:51:22.500\nwhy do you think consumers out there are not changing their eating and drinking\n\n1107\n00:51:22.500 --> 00:51:23.100\nhabits?\"\n\n1108\n00:51:23.100 --> 00:51:24.980\nWe're becoming a repertoire.\n\n1109\n00:51:24.980 --> 00:51:28.340\nI'm not suggesting you should swing the pendulum widely.\n\n1110\n00:51:28.340 --> 00:51:34.130\nAll that I'm saying is we ought to invest broadly in fun for you, better for\n\n1111\n00:51:34.130 --> 00:51:34.980\nyou, and\n\n1112\n00:51:34.980 --> 00:51:36.180\ngood for you.\n\n1113\n00:51:36.180 --> 00:51:40.180\nAnd if we don't offer a balanced portfolio of great tasting products to our\n\n1114\n00:51:40.180 --> 00:51:40.980\nconsumers,\n\n1115\n00:51:40.980 --> 00:51:44.420\nwe're going to lose this competitive battle.\n\n1116\n00:51:44.420 --> 00:51:46.260\nInitially, there was resistance.\n\n1117\n00:51:46.260 --> 00:51:50.960\nI think emotionally, they bought it, but intellectually, they were not willing\n\n1118\n00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:51.660\nto accept\n\n1119\n00:51:51.660 --> 00:51:52.660\nit.\n\n1120\n00:51:52.660 --> 00:51:53.660\nRight.\n\n1121\n00:51:53.660 --> 00:51:54.660\nAll right.\n\n1122\n00:51:54.660 --> 00:51:58.130\nHow did you personally handle that criticism that you know you were getting in\n\n1123\n00:51:58.130 --> 00:51:58.820\nsome corners\n\n1124\n00:51:58.820 --> 00:51:59.820\nof the world?\n\n1125\n00:51:59.820 --> 00:52:05.540\nIn many corners, many, many corners retired executives, long-serving executives\n\n1126\n00:52:05.540 --> 00:52:06.100\n, some\n\n1127\n00:52:06.100 --> 00:52:07.100\ninvestors.\n\n1128\n00:52:07.100 --> 00:52:10.500\nI think what really withstood the test of time was two things.\n\n1129\n00:52:10.500 --> 00:52:13.300\nI had tremendous resolve on our strategy.\n\n1130\n00:52:13.300 --> 00:52:18.260\nI was convinced this was the only strategy this company should be following.\n\n1131\n00:52:18.260 --> 00:52:22.090\nAnd the only way we could have changed our direction is that the board had\n\n1132\n00:52:22.090 --> 00:52:22.860\nfired me.\n\n1133\n00:52:22.860 --> 00:52:26.540\nSecond, we had an unbelievably good board.\n\n1134\n00:52:26.540 --> 00:52:30.110\nThe board bought into the strategy and said, \"This is the only way you should\n\n1135\n00:52:30.110 --> 00:52:30.580\nlead the\n\n1136\n00:52:30.580 --> 00:52:31.580\ncompany.\"\n\n1137\n00:52:31.580 --> 00:52:36.210\nAnd when you had the board in your corner, and a vocal involved, detail-\n\n1138\n00:52:36.210 --> 00:52:37.300\noriented board\n\n1139\n00:52:37.300 --> 00:52:44.260\nin your corner, who were not going to be swung by any disgruntled ex-employee,\n\n1140\n00:52:44.260 --> 00:52:44.380\nyou know\n\n1141\n00:52:44.380 --> 00:52:46.580\nthat you're on the right track.\n\n1142\n00:52:46.580 --> 00:52:51.600\nSo the combination of the unbelievable board support and my own personal result\n\n1143\n00:52:51.600 --> 00:52:52.180\nis what\n\n1144\n00:52:52.180 --> 00:52:54.900\nallowed me to keep the strategy going.\n\n1145\n00:52:54.900 --> 00:52:59.590\nAnd then our employees started to buy in, and one success beguette other\n\n1146\n00:52:59.590 --> 00:53:01.220\nsuccesses, and\n\n1147\n00:53:01.220 --> 00:53:03.460\nthat's why we are where we are today.\n\n1148\n00:53:03.460 --> 00:53:04.460\nAbsolutely.\n\n1149\n00:53:04.460 --> 00:53:05.460\nThat's great.\n\n1150\n00:53:05.460 --> 00:53:11.860\nSpeaking of your employees, what do you do to really motivate the troops?\n\n1151\n00:53:11.860 --> 00:53:14.380\nWhat do you think is the key to motivation?\n\n1152\n00:53:14.380 --> 00:53:17.060\nNow Pepsi goes a great place to work.\n\n1153\n00:53:17.060 --> 00:53:20.460\nSo first of all, people love coming to work at PepsiCo.\n\n1154\n00:53:20.460 --> 00:53:23.220\nBut David, we've learned a lot from you too.\n\n1155\n00:53:23.220 --> 00:53:26.100\nThis culture of recognition is very important.\n\n1156\n00:53:26.100 --> 00:53:29.860\nPeople like to be recognized for small things and big things.\n\n1157\n00:53:29.860 --> 00:53:36.980\nAnd we've put in place many, many recognition programs in PepsiCo.\n\n1158\n00:53:36.980 --> 00:53:40.860\nYou know, on a day-to-day basis, any manager can recognize somebody at PepsiCo\n\n1159\n00:53:40.860 --> 00:53:41.460\nby giving\n\n1160\n00:53:41.460 --> 00:53:46.860\nthem a coupon or a little gift or a little ticket to something.\n\n1161\n00:53:46.860 --> 00:53:49.300\nSo you can do anything on a local basis.\n\n1162\n00:53:49.300 --> 00:53:53.260\nBut on an institutionalized basis, we actually do a lot of recognition.\n\n1163\n00:53:53.260 --> 00:53:56.730\nEvery year we do the Ring of Honor, which is the frontline salesman of PepsiCo,\n\n1164\n00:53:56.730 --> 00:53:57.220\nsalesman\n\n1165\n00:53:57.220 --> 00:54:02.580\nand saleswomen, about 300 of them come to purchase from around the world.\n\n1166\n00:54:02.580 --> 00:54:06.840\nAnd for three days, we treat them fantastically and say thank you to them for\n\n1167\n00:54:06.840 --> 00:54:07.980\nthis unbelievable\n\n1168\n00:54:07.980 --> 00:54:10.700\njob they're doing, the front lines of PepsiCo.\n\n1169\n00:54:10.700 --> 00:54:13.220\nBecause they do a good job and we get all the credit.\n\n1170\n00:54:13.220 --> 00:54:17.100\nSo these are unbelievable people who make PepsiCo look good every day on the\n\n1171\n00:54:17.100 --> 00:54:17.820\nshelves.\n\n1172\n00:54:17.820 --> 00:54:18.820\nSo that's a big program.\n\n1173\n00:54:18.820 --> 00:54:22.540\nEight years ago, I put in something called Circle of Champions, which is for\n\n1174\n00:54:22.540 --> 00:54:22.980\nall the\n\n1175\n00:54:22.980 --> 00:54:24.980\npeople on the factory floors.\n\n1176\n00:54:24.980 --> 00:54:28.600\nBecause we were lauding the salespeople, we forgot the people and the factory\n\n1177\n00:54:28.600 --> 00:54:29.180\nfloors.\n\n1178\n00:54:29.180 --> 00:54:32.140\nSo the Circle of Champions is all the people in the factory floors, same number\n\n1179\n00:54:32.140 --> 00:54:32.580\nthat come\n\n1180\n00:54:32.580 --> 00:54:34.060\nin in October.\n\n1181\n00:54:34.060 --> 00:54:38.260\nAnd we have this unbelievable celebration of their successes.\n\n1182\n00:54:38.260 --> 00:54:41.700\nWe do the Harvey Russell diversity and inclusion.\n\n1183\n00:54:41.700 --> 00:54:44.220\nAre we really promoting diversity?\n\n1184\n00:54:44.220 --> 00:54:45.900\nAre we embracing diversity?\n\n1185\n00:54:45.900 --> 00:54:49.300\nAre we complimenting people on their diversity initiatives?\n\n1186\n00:54:49.300 --> 00:54:50.300\nWe do that.\n\n1187\n00:54:50.300 --> 00:54:52.980\nThe Steve Reinerment DNI Award.\n\n1188\n00:54:52.980 --> 00:54:54.300\nWe give out R&D award.\n\n1189\n00:54:54.300 --> 00:55:00.620\nSo every function has an award ceremony, which gives awards to people who do a\n\n1190\n00:55:00.620 --> 00:55:01.780\ngreat job.\n\n1191\n00:55:01.780 --> 00:55:05.220\nAnd then people like Al-Kadi give out this crushed Coke can for somebody who\n\n1192\n00:55:05.220 --> 00:55:06.060\ndoes something\n\n1193\n00:55:06.060 --> 00:55:07.060\nto take on competition.\n\n1194\n00:55:07.060 --> 00:55:08.060\nI like that one.\n\n1195\n00:55:08.060 --> 00:55:11.300\nYeah, but you do all those things to be learned from you.\n\n1196\n00:55:11.300 --> 00:55:16.890\nAnd so I think across this company, this culture of recognition is simply\n\n1197\n00:55:16.890 --> 00:55:18.060\ningrained.\n\n1198\n00:55:18.060 --> 00:55:22.490\nAnd from my perspective, one of the things that I've gotten the most\n\n1199\n00:55:22.490 --> 00:55:23.460\nsatisfaction is\n\n1200\n00:55:23.460 --> 00:55:24.460\nit's not an award.\n\n1201\n00:55:24.460 --> 00:55:27.500\nIt's not giving them a little certificate or whatever.\n\n1202\n00:55:27.500 --> 00:55:32.020\nWhen I write letters to parents of some of my executives and I tell the parents\n\n1203\n00:55:32.020 --> 00:55:32.540\n, what\n\n1204\n00:55:32.540 --> 00:55:36.100\na great job their son or daughter is doing.\n\n1205\n00:55:36.100 --> 00:55:43.380\nThat recognition is worth more than money, stock grants, hugs, tickets,\n\n1206\n00:55:43.380 --> 00:55:44.700\nanything.\n\n1207\n00:55:44.700 --> 00:55:48.430\nBecause at the end of the day, and I go back to where I started, when your\n\n1208\n00:55:48.430 --> 00:55:49.180\nparents say\n\n1209\n00:55:49.180 --> 00:55:52.220\nto you, I am so proud of you.\n\n1210\n00:55:52.220 --> 00:55:55.700\nAnd your boss just wrote to me saying that you are awesome.\n\n1211\n00:55:55.700 --> 00:56:00.500\nAnd the look on their face is worth a million dollars.\n\n1212\n00:56:00.500 --> 00:56:04.380\nAnd that's what I do very regularly in PepsiCo because to me, that gives me\n\n1213\n00:56:04.380 --> 00:56:05.540\nmore satisfaction\n\n1214\n00:56:05.540 --> 00:56:07.420\nthan anything else.\n\n1215\n00:56:07.420 --> 00:56:10.630\nYou clearly understand the power of recognition and the privilege of being able\n\n1216\n00:56:10.630 --> 00:56:11.100\nto give it\n\n1217\n00:56:11.100 --> 00:56:14.980\nand the privilege of being the CEO and what that would mean to a mom and dad to\n\n1218\n00:56:14.980 --> 00:56:15.500\nreceive\n\n1219\n00:56:15.500 --> 00:56:16.500\na letter from you.\n\n1220\n00:56:16.500 --> 00:56:17.500\nAbsolutely.\n\n1221\n00:56:17.500 --> 00:56:18.500\nThat's outstanding.\n\n1222\n00:56:18.500 --> 00:56:22.180\nPepsiCo is known for its leadership development.\n\n1223\n00:56:22.180 --> 00:56:26.020\nWhat do you think makes a great leader?\n\n1224\n00:56:26.020 --> 00:56:28.180\nWhat do you really look for in leadership?\n\n1225\n00:56:28.180 --> 00:56:31.660\nThere's all these soft skills, hard skills.\n\n1226\n00:56:31.660 --> 00:56:36.060\nPeople look at all of these tests that people can take to assess for leadership\n\n1227\n00:56:36.060 --> 00:56:37.060\nqualities.\n\n1228\n00:56:37.060 --> 00:56:42.260\nBut when I interview somebody, I look for two or three things.\n\n1229\n00:56:42.260 --> 00:56:47.750\nFirst, as I talk to the person and I have the conversation with them, are they\n\n1230\n00:56:47.750 --> 00:56:48.500\ncurious?\n\n1231\n00:56:48.500 --> 00:56:51.180\nDo they really want to be a lifelong student?\n\n1232\n00:56:51.180 --> 00:56:56.140\nDo they ask the right questions to get to the next level of insight?\n\n1233\n00:56:56.140 --> 00:56:59.960\nThat's something I look for very carefully because I hate people who walk in\n\n1234\n00:56:59.960 --> 00:57:00.500\nand want\n\n1235\n00:57:00.500 --> 00:57:01.980\nto maintain status quo.\n\n1236\n00:57:01.980 --> 00:57:07.060\nI love people who are lifelong learners who are always pushing the boundaries.\n\n1237\n00:57:07.060 --> 00:57:08.500\nThat's one thing I look for.\n\n1238\n00:57:08.500 --> 00:57:13.780\nSecond, I look for people who believe in high quality work.\n\n1239\n00:57:13.780 --> 00:57:16.540\nDo people really sweat the details?\n\n1240\n00:57:16.540 --> 00:57:20.200\nDo they really want to look at the product that they turn out and say, \"This is\n\n1241\n00:57:20.200 --> 00:57:21.540\nthe absolute\n\n1242\n00:57:21.540 --> 00:57:25.100\nbest I could have done, I suppose, to let's just get something out to her.\"\n\n1243\n00:57:25.100 --> 00:57:26.220\nShe'll fix it anyway.\n\n1244\n00:57:26.220 --> 00:57:29.140\nI hate that kind of performance.\n\n1245\n00:57:29.140 --> 00:57:31.930\nAnd the third and the most important I should start with it, but I'm going to\n\n1246\n00:57:31.930 --> 00:57:32.540\nend with it,\n\n1247\n00:57:32.540 --> 00:57:39.180\nis I look for people who throw their head, heart and hands into the job.\n\n1248\n00:57:39.180 --> 00:57:42.660\nSometimes people just come to work saying, \"Hey, it's a job.\n\n1249\n00:57:42.660 --> 00:57:43.740\nIt's not a job.\n\n1250\n00:57:43.740 --> 00:57:44.740\nIt's a calling.\n\n1251\n00:57:44.740 --> 00:57:46.540\nIt's a passion.\n\n1252\n00:57:46.540 --> 00:57:49.140\nIt's something that consumes your life.\"\n\n1253\n00:57:49.140 --> 00:57:52.580\nAnd you've got to come in with a sense of optimism.\n\n1254\n00:57:52.580 --> 00:57:55.580\nYou've got to come in with a sense of, \"I can do it.\"\n\n1255\n00:57:55.580 --> 00:57:57.660\nA sense of, \"I can do it.\n\n1256\n00:57:57.660 --> 00:57:58.660\nIt must be done.\n\n1257\n00:57:58.660 --> 00:58:01.940\nI'm going to get everybody with me to get it done.\"\n\n1258\n00:58:01.940 --> 00:58:07.820\nIt's got to be this constant love for the company that you project constantly.\n\n1259\n00:58:07.820 --> 00:58:12.550\nAnd when we do the interview process, not so many people bubble up through\n\n1260\n00:58:12.550 --> 00:58:13.860\nthese criteria.\n\n1261\n00:58:13.860 --> 00:58:17.980\nThey pass on the first and second, when it comes to the third, when they show\n\n1262\n00:58:17.980 --> 00:58:18.820\nthis apathy\n\n1263\n00:58:18.820 --> 00:58:24.410\nor a little bit of a screen in front of them, \"I like these copios like you and\n\n1264\n00:58:24.410 --> 00:58:25.300\nme who bring\n\n1265\n00:58:25.300 --> 00:58:29.610\neverything the kitchen sink to work because we just throw ourselves into the\n\n1266\n00:58:29.610 --> 00:58:30.260\njob and we\n\n1267\n00:58:30.260 --> 00:58:31.660\nlove what we do.\n\n1268\n00:58:31.660 --> 00:58:33.380\nI love what I do, David.\n\n1269\n00:58:33.380 --> 00:58:36.540\nI've always loved what I was doing.\"\n\n1270\n00:58:36.540 --> 00:58:41.140\nOne of the things that you've demonstrated in this podcast is just your belief\n\n1271\n00:58:41.140 --> 00:58:41.580\nin all\n\n1272\n00:58:41.580 --> 00:58:44.820\npeople and how everybody makes a difference in your company.\n\n1273\n00:58:44.820 --> 00:58:48.490\nI knew I would learn some more by spending some more time with you and I love\n\n1274\n00:58:48.490 --> 00:58:49.020\nit every\n\n1275\n00:58:49.020 --> 00:58:50.020\nbit of it.\n\n1276\n00:58:50.020 --> 00:58:51.020\nThank you very much.\n\n1277\n00:58:51.020 --> 00:58:53.940\nDavid, thank you for having me and I look forward to seeing you again.\n\n1278\n00:58:53.940 --> 00:59:05.810\nNow, we're all driven to be successful, but when you spend time with Indra, you\n\n1279\n00:59:05.810 --> 00:59:06.440\ncan\n\n1280\n00:59:06.440 --> 00:59:12.100\nsee that we unlock a whole new level of success when we elevate those around us\n\n1281\n00:59:12.100 --> 00:59:12.180\n.\n\n1282\n00:59:12.180 --> 00:59:15.980\nAnd now it's time for my favorite part of our podcast episode.\n\n1283\n00:59:15.980 --> 00:59:20.100\nThis is where I give you some coaching to help you develop as a leader.\n\n1284\n00:59:20.100 --> 00:59:24.870\nThis week as part of your weekly development plan, here's what I want you to do\n\n1285\n00:59:24.870 --> 00:59:25.060\n.\n\n1286\n00:59:25.060 --> 00:59:28.500\nMake it a point to intentionally lift up someone on your team.\n\n1287\n00:59:28.500 --> 00:59:32.100\nYou probably already know exactly who it needs to be.\n\n1288\n00:59:32.100 --> 00:59:33.980\nMaybe shoot them a thoughtful email.\n\n1289\n00:59:33.980 --> 00:59:35.820\nGive them a public shout out.\n\n1290\n00:59:35.820 --> 00:59:37.180\nCreate a development opportunity.\n\n1291\n00:59:37.180 --> 00:59:41.210\nHeck, you can even take a page out of Indra's playbook and write a note to\n\n1292\n00:59:41.210 --> 00:59:42.300\ntheir parents.\n\n1293\n00:59:42.300 --> 00:59:46.460\nBut find more and more ways to build up your team and I guarantee you, you'll\n\n1294\n00:59:46.460 --> 00:59:47.020\nfind your\n\n1295\n00:59:47.020 --> 00:59:49.660\nleadership skills will build up as well.\n\n1296\n00:59:49.660 --> 00:59:51.420\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1297\n00:59:51.420 --> 00:59:55.660\nWhat we learned today is that great leaders look for ways to elevate others.\n\n1298\n00:59:55.660 --> 00:59:59.530\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every\n\n1299\n00:59:59.530 --> 01:00:00.340\nThursday you\n\n1300\n01:00:00.340 --> 01:00:04.620\nget to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world.\n\n1301\n01:00:04.620 --> 01:00:08.310\nI make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can\n\n1302\n01:00:08.310 --> 01:00:09.060\napply to your\n\n1303\n01:00:09.060 --> 01:00:12.580\nbusiness so that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1304\n01:00:12.580 --> 01:00:22.580\n[BLANK_AUDIO]\n\n1305\n01:00:22.580 --> 01:00:32.580\n[BLANK_AUDIO]","

David Novak 0:03

Hello, everybody, welcome to how leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, Indra is an incredibly accomplished leader. And she ran PepsiCo for 12 years from 2006 to 2018. And she navigated all kinds of challenges during that period. She went through a global recession, major restructuring and sweeping changes in consumer habits. But you know what, during Indras reign as CEO PepsiCo sales rose by 80%. Now that kind of leadership is impressive. But what's even more impressive to me is how Indra does it. By looking for ways to elevate others and build them up. She intentionally carves out opportunities for the people she leads and serves. And this isn't just pie in the sky stuff. It's practical. You'll hear it when she goes into detail about PepsiCo is leadership development and retention strategies. You'll hear when she talks about increasing diversity and calling out bias. You'll hear it when she shares her own story as a woman of color, and immigrant from India. And you'll see for yourself that great leaders intentionally elevate the people they serve. And that's the big leadership lesson waiting for you in this week's episode. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. Indra Nooyi.

Indra Nooyi 1:45

Ambra thanks so

David Novak 1:46

much for taking the time to chat with me. I really, really appreciate it.

Indra Nooyi 1:49

David, you know, I think the world of you and you're a great leader of young restaurants. And I've admired you for over many, many years. And it's a pleasure to do this a privilege to be invited on to

David Novak 2:00

go well, you know, we are definitely living in some crazy times these days. And and, you know, I always describe you as a change maker. Well, how do you think that Coronavirus is changing the way that leaders will need to lead in the future?

Indra Nooyi 2:15

I think COVID has challenged everybody because nobody has experienced a pandemic like this in our lifetimes. The last time it happened was a 99 team that was 102 years ago. So none of us really have a playbook to deal with the pandemics. We're writing it as we go along. And as we're writing it, we are finding that so many things have to change as we go forward if we ever have another pandemic, which I hope we never do. Because pandemics require incredible coordination within a country, from the federal government and state government, across countries with multilateral institutions. And you know, all of those are not something we do regularly and tested. So this particular pandemic has challenged all of us to rethink all of our, you know, institutions, our methods for cooperating across the country across the world, because viruses know, no borders. They just bottle this. And so it's a real challenge for all of us.

David Novak 3:18

In How much do you think the way how leaders will communicate will change? Do you know, right now we're living in this virtual world. And everybody's saying Digital's accelerating at least three to five years from where it was. But a lot of CEOs I talked to feel like they're closer to their employees today than they've ever been.

Indra Nooyi 3:34

I actually think we missed the face to face interaction. I know I do. You know, having chaired the reopen Connecticut Taskforce, I missed the reopen, committee meeting in person and talking and arguing issues because there's nothing like the emotion of face to face meeting. And you know, digital technologies are fantastic. Don't get me wrong, whether zoom or teams or any of the video conferencing apps, they're getting better every day. But what they don't bring is that heart to the whole process. When you have a face to face meeting, you can resolve issues faster than when you have a video conference. So I hope we have the opportunity to do both face to face when it's needed, augmented with video conferencing like we have today, when you know we cannot really get to the office. So I think what this pandemic has enabled us to do is hybrid approaches. So you know, working in an office,

David Novak 4:33

I know that you read the book, The Great influenza, it's about the Spanish flu that you just made reference to which happened in 1918. What did you learn from reading that book that should be relevant to us today?

Indra Nooyi 4:47

I'd say pretty much the whole book. And there are certain chapters, especially the last three pages of the book, which talks about what should leaders do in the next pandemic? Believe in the science be brutally Oh, almost pull no punches, tell the public exactly what's going on. Don't create a panic, but don't suppress the truth. Give them hope. Tell them exactly what you're doing. Trust the science. And so as I read the book, I almost felt like taking out the 1918 influenza and substituting it with COVID. Similarities are eerie. And John Baron did an excellent job writing that book was readable. It was difficult to understand the magnitude of the pandemic, when it happened in 1918 was worldwide It was devastating. But I think we should all read it to make sure that we never had that happen to us again.

David Novak 5:41

Well, I'm definitely going to give it a read myself this, this is such a huge crisis. And you know, when you look back into what was the biggest crisis that you had to handle in your business career, and what do you learn from it,

Indra Nooyi 5:53

you know, multiple crises, if I go back to, you know, just my PepsiCo days, and I was there for 25 years, you know, when you're CFO and President and it is reporting to you, and you have a major system failure. That's a crisis, before Memorial Day order processing, oh, my God, you get, I mean, you just freak out. When you have the financial crisis, and business is really taking a beating. You know, it's a crisis you have to deal with, when an activist investor comes into your stock. You know, it's a crisis you have to deal with. And each of these, I think, for a brief moment, you panic, that's inevitable. But then a good leader recovers from the panic really fast, and says, Okay, I'm done with the panicking few minutes. Now, let me see what I can do about it. Because being in a state of panic doesn't help. People are looking up to you to see what you want them to do. You have to provide the direction. So you collect yourself, and you sit up and you say, Okay, let's put our arms around the issue. Let's really understand what's going on. Let's bring the experts in the room, let's learn from them, and then start together craft a plan forward. It's tough, because deep down inside, you're feeling terrible about the fact that you have to handle this issue. But I tell you, after the first crisis you've had the second one gets better the third one. And it's a learning process. But I have to tell you, every crisis that you go through makes you a better person.

David Novak 7:23

That's what that's saying that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Leaders have also had to witness and respond to the tragic death of George Floyd in the rifle plea for racial justice. You know, you have such a renowned platform, Indra, what are you doing on this front? And what advice do you have to offer the other leaders?

Indra Nooyi 7:47

Um, you know, a lot of what I did was when I was at PepsiCo, PepsiCo was a company that really believed in diversity and inclusion. And, you know, going back to the days of Steve Rainham, and when he really jumped started the whole DNI process, I had the opportunity to have a critical mass of people of all kinds in PepsiCo, so that we could build on that critical mass of people. So I first want to get credit to stay relevant for what he put into the company. And PepsiCo wants to be a company where its employee base reflected the consumer base. So we were inching our way up to those numbers in the company. And we were making very good progress, not just in hiring, but in retaining and developing. So we were having explicit programs, to make sure we retain people, we develop people, because we didn't want to lose people, we struggled so much to hire. So we worked very hard at that. Now that I've retired, I don't have a platform as such. But I will tell you, David, I'm very, very enthused by what I'm seeing in any forums that I'm attending, because many, many seals are committing to really work this issue in a very focused, immediate way, which I think is a big change from the past where people were just looking at, you know, this issue and said, I'll get to it, or I'll address it over over the years. Now, they're saying, we have to put the money behind these programs. We have to do it now. So I'm actually very optimistic that this time around, people will recognize that is not a nice to do. It's a must do.

David Novak 9:23

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And you know, Andrew, I know that you are a big fan of the great late Representative John Lewis. You know, what do you think we can learn from him? I mean, he was a, you know, great civil rights leader. Great, great, Congressman, what can we learn from him and how he tried to solve the problem?

Indra Nooyi 9:44

You know, I think if you go back to John Lewis, and I've been doing a lot of reading of Martin Luther King and other leaders, I think basically, the message that they were giving is one of unity, solving problems through unity, not to divisions. If you read everything, John Lewis say if it was true unity, do not divide a society that come together and solve issues. And to me, that's what endeared me to John Lewis, if you want to call it that, and at no point in his career, in spite of all that he went through, did he ever talk about a divided society, he only talked about us coming together to resolve these issues. And he was a man of hope. He always thought we could address these issues. They never held a grudge to go back and look at all of the stuff he went through. He never held a grudge. I wish I could be such a big person that he was,

David Novak 10:38

you know, you've you've always believed in confronting bias publicly, you've and you've written about it, and you say that, you know, confronting bias publicly is essential. Can Can you tell us a story of when you've done that?

Indra Nooyi 10:54

Typically, what happens is there's unconscious bias, more than conscious bias. Sometimes, when a woman is talking, somebody will roll their eyes, or when somebody who's diverse of any kind talks or says something, some group in the meeting would roll their eyes or cut them off. You know, you can't, you can't allow that to happen. They may not even realize they're doing it. But you've got to stop that and say, Hey, why did you stop? Why did you talk over that person? Why did you cut that person off? Why did you roll your eyes when that person was talking? What was the issue you were addressing when you roll your eyes. So at every point, when you see bad behavior, conscious or unconscious, you can call it out right there. If it happens again, and again, it's conscious. If it happens once and they change, it was unconscious the first time. So you give them a pass the first time, the second time you get serious, and the third time you really go for some action. So I think it's a question of education, it's a question of giving them a chance, modeling their behavior back to them and seeing how they feel about it. It's a process, it doesn't happen overnight.

David Novak 12:07

You know, I understand it, or that you have a new book in the works. And you have so many valuable experiences. What do you plan to cover in your book,

Indra Nooyi 12:16

it's all about integrating work and family. And basically, the premise of my book, David is that, as a country, we want to enable families to have about two kids per family. That's the replacement rate for the country. But we also want every brain in the country to be deployed in the work of the country so that we can grow as a country, and that I'm talking about men and women alike. So the real question is, how do we enable all of them to be able to come to work and have a paid job, so that the GDP of the country can grow? At the same time families are also created, and children are nurtured and developed? So how do we provide the support system for people in terms of childcare in terms of, you know, family, leave maternity care, whatever, in order to enable them to have families and work without going through incredible stress? I find that men and women alike today, young people are going through a lot of stress when they have to balance so many priorities. So the real question is how do you create institutional policies working between governments, societies, communities, companies to be able to make it happen?

David Novak 13:29

Yeah, it's a book. I'm gonna read address I'll give you I'm hoping you'll give me an autographed copy.

Indra Nooyi 13:34

I'm hoping that I'll come back on your podcast and talk about it. David,

David Novak 13:38

I can't wait to do that. That'll be great. You mentioned it a little bit earlier. But you you've taken on a special project to help Governor Ned Lamont and Connecticut. Good. Could you tell us a little bit about what you're doing?

Indra Nooyi 13:48

Yeah, two things. One, I'm the co chair of the advanced CTE which is advancing Connecticut's economic opportunities. It's a, you know, business led entity in the state of Connecticut. We're on a government organization. We are a private organization. And we really talk about how to bring investment to Connecticut. That's what I was doing. Until Governor Lamont wanted me to co chair the reopen Connecticut Task Force and help him with how to think about how he should reopen Connecticut. So it was a private task force through advanced CTE. And we helped provide the governor framework so that he and his cabinet could decide exactly how they wanted to open, reopen Connecticut. And we worked for about 10 weeks, all of us with the government officials with all kinds of experts. And we provided a framework to the governor who then took the framework but his team modified it and applied it in the state of Connecticut successfully. First of all, is a wonderful governor. So everything worked out very well.

David Novak 14:56

That's great. That's great. You know, once a change maker always a change maker.

Indra Nooyi 15:00

They're like you. Yes,

David Novak 15:02

you sit on the review panel for quality can't wait challenge that Melinda Gates champion. So what do you hope to accomplish by doing that?

Indra Nooyi 15:12

I think we're just trying to find role models and showcase them and give them prizes so that people feel like there's something they can aspire to. When you look at any of these organizations that set up prizes and gives give it to people. It's because they want to recognize people for doing things that move society forward. You never give a prize to somebody to move society back. You always give a prize to move society forward. So you know, there's equality can't wait. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg award committee that I sit on all the Jason Witten collegiate award committee, I sit down, all of these are to move society forward, somebody who's done something wonderful, beyond the call of what they're regularly doing, to help more societal issues to help address societal issues and move society forward. And to me, equality can't wait. The submissions haven't come to me, but when I did, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jason Witten collegiate award, some of the write ups of the people that came to us just spectacular, people are doing some amazing things and make your heart very warm.

David Novak 16:17

You've met so many amazing leaders, who would be the most impressive female leader that you've met.

Indra Nooyi 16:25

As a female leader, let me name a few because I think I've met a bunch of people. Christine Lagarde just blows me away. She's brilliant, she's global. She's focused. She understands issues around the world in spectacular ways. I enjoy talking to Christine Lagarde. Hillary Clinton is perhaps one of the smartest women I've ever met smartest people I've ever met. Kay Bailey Hutchinson from Texas, somebody I simply adore. You know, I've had many, many conversations with Kay Bailey Hutchison. I even did a luncheon for her in Dallas. She's a calm, calming person, with a great global view. I've enjoyed talking to her. If I go over to Asia, hosting of Singapore, with another person who has a very global perspective of all issues, and when you sit down and talk to her Ching, you leave feeling even more informed about the state of the world. So my job and even today, I come in contact with all these people. And I've truly enjoyed getting to know them and chatting with them and learning from them more than anything else.

David Novak 17:37

I'm sure that's a two way street, there's no doubt.

Indra Nooyi 17:40

I'm the I'm the beneficiary.

David Novak 17:42

I had to ask you, you know, just how hard has it been for you to step back from being on the front line of such a major company like PepsiCo and being the CEO? And having that responsibility? How hard is it been?

Indra Nooyi 17:57

So let me talk about what I thought it would be and what it is I thought I was gonna be bereft because 25 years go go go and PepsiCo and 15 years before that, the last role was CEO and I'm saying, Oh, my God, what am I going to do with my life? I walked out of the PepsiCo headquarters on October 2, as I stepped down as CEO. And I walked into my office in Greenwich, my family office, and I haven't looked back, I've been busier than before in my my own way. My life is richer in a funny way, because I'm learning so much more meeting more interesting people. And I'm not wedded to a quarterly earnings cycle, which sort of grinds it to you. And remember, I was CFO and President and then CEO, I did 75 quarters of earnings releases 75 quarters. That's a lot. And in a funny way, I tell you, I feel lighter, healthier. I loved PepsiCo and as people when I was there, but I'm a new person, I'm reborn.

David Novak 18:56

Yeah, well, you're reborn, and you're doing a lot of great things, which is no surprise to me. I always tell everybody, when people ask me that question, I didn't know I could love something so much and miss it so little.

Indra Nooyi 19:06

You know, you and I exactly the same day. I think we've got this productive lives that we have no time to miss anything else.

David Novak 19:13

You are such an avid learner. You know, how are you continuing to sharpen your axe?

Indra Nooyi 19:19

You know, first of all, I'm involved in so many activities. So many businesses, I advise so many little startup companies, but I don't just advise them actually learn the business. I go to school on their business. And I really want to understand what that industry is. And so that allows me to open my VISTAs a lot. Being on the Amazon board. I learned so much from them. It's perhaps one of the most, I think it's a 23rd century company. It's like the technologies that they embrace the way they think about the future. We think about the customer because they're always customer first is unbelievable. So I think that has been An amazing learning opportunity. You know, I teach up at West Point, Military Academy, and watching those cadets learn watching those faculty members teach them. I sit there and look at them in all because the discipline, the focus, the commitment, the patriotism, they have something that I think they will, I'm trying to get you out there to respond to speak to them. It is just amazing. So I am involved in so many things. And each of the activities I'm involved in actually teaching me more than I'm teaching them.

David Novak 20:38

I'd be honored to be a guest that

Indra Nooyi 20:41

Zoom, but you know what they would benefit enormously from you.

David Novak 20:45

I would love to do that. Indra, you were recognized on the 100th birthday of the League of Women Voters as the most outstanding woman in business. What did that mean to you?

Indra Nooyi 20:57

Good news, bad news. Let me tell you what it is. The great news is that they looked at me and said that I was a role model, I paved the way for other women to say, hey, we too can be like Indra, somebody of color somebody was an immigrant, I gave hope to so many people. So that part made me feel great. The part that made me feel bad that there weren't as many of us as they could have been, as they could have been. If you really look at it, our numbers are still small, I think in 10, or 15 years is going to be much more. The fact that the progress over the last 50 to 75 years has been glacial made me feel bad. You know, while you'd like to be celebrated, you want to be among a much larger group. I mean, we were 10% of the Fortune 500 And women CEOs, so we have a long way to go. And so like I said, there's good news, bad news, you feel great being celebrated. But you know that you've got to pave the way for more people to come up the ranks. That's why the book is important.

David Novak 22:01

Yeah, I agree. And the other thing that I know that you do is you challenge everyone to get a female mentor. Yeah, Explain that.

Indra Nooyi 22:10

Well, you know, it's interesting. When I left PepsiCo, people kept saying, why don't you replace yourself with a woman CEO? Why don't they ask the men that? Why haven't you replaced yourself with a woman CEO? So I think it's a question of all of us have to fully each other up. Women should not be mentoring this women. Men should not be mentoring, just men, it should be all over the place. Men should mentor women, women should be mentoring men, because we all learn from each other. So I always tell people, if you go and get a female mentor, you'll just get a feel for the other side, you know, the EQ more than just the IQ, you'll understand business from the point of view of somebody quite different. Or make sure you understand everybody's point of view. And that's why I think that it always helps to have male mentors, but it also helps to have female mentors, because they give you just a slightly different perspective.

David Novak 23:09

You know, and I didn't know you were on the Amazon board. I should have known that. But it's interesting. You know, Jeff Bezos is an amazing leader, what have you learned watching him in action?

Indra Nooyi 23:20

I don't think I've met anybody quite as brilliant as him. I mean, it's just his brain, the way it works, how much is willing to absorb or can absorb how you can push the boundaries of thinking and innovation and invention. I am more than all than anything else. The fact that he's built this US based enterprise, from the ground up from the trunk of his car, is just a how do I call it the eighth wonder of the world. I mean, look at the size of the company, now the trunk of his car. And it's not a company, even though its founder led, he doesn't act that way. He runs it very professionally. So the fact that somebody like him, who grew up in very humble circumstances, can build this incredible enterprise that it's still in its early stages, is something that we can all learn from. And every time I got an Amazon board meeting or read anything they send or interface with them. I just sit there going, man, these are unusual, human beings.

David Novak 24:32

I think every business person in the world would like to be a fly on the wall one of those VDS just

Indra Nooyi 24:38

I consider myself lucky to be able to learn from the Masters there.

David Novak 24:41

This is always fun catching up with you, Andrew and I want to have a little more fun and we're gonna do a lightning round of q&a with you again, what three words best describe you

Indra Nooyi 24:51

caring, passionate, but driven.

David Novak 24:57

If you could be one person in the world for a day Who would it be and why?

Indra Nooyi 25:03

I would have liked to have been Nelson Mandela and robins island for one day just to experience what he went through. I went to Robben Island about three years ago, and to the apartheid Museum, and I've never come out crying from a trip as I did that particular trip,

David Novak 25:22

you know, that was a very inspiring trip for me, too. I'll never ever forget the fact that he could live in that room, and come out and be so humble and bring everybody together and incredible leader. What's something about you enter that few people would know

Indra Nooyi 25:39

that I care more about mentoring and developing other people than anything else. To me, that is the single most important thing. And I just calculated in the last six years in PepsiCo, I gave the world I think, nine CEOs, but three CFOs and three CHR OHS and three CMOS. So interestingly, I look at that as perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments because we develop those leaders. I feel great about that.

David Novak 26:09

That's a big family tree, you can be proud of them.

Indra Nooyi 26:12

But do that way too. You taught me a lot of that too. David,

David Novak 26:15

do you have any hidden talents, hidden talents, you

Indra Nooyi 26:18

know, I love to ballroom dance.

David Novak 26:23

But you're great at that. And do you have a favorite quote off the top of your head?

Indra Nooyi 26:29

The Martin Luther King's page, what's your life blueprint, six paragraphs was delivered in 1963, I think or 67 and Bharat high school in Philadelphia. It six paragraphs, talks about what's your life blueprint. And every word of that one page speech is a quote I live by I read that speech almost every week. It's about how to live life and do the best you can and be as perfect as you can be as defined as by you to be as perfect as you can be. And I read that speech again and again. And I say that is my life blueprint.

David Novak 27:12

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Indra Nooyi in just a moment, if you want to elevate the people on your team, you have to actually care about them. That may sound so Elementary, but it's so true. In my conversation with John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, you'll hear how he puts the idea into action.

John Calipari 27:32

Larry Brown told me if you care about people, you always have a job. And if they know you care, you can be aggressive, you can coach them, as long as they know you care. If you want

David Novak 27:43

to elevate your team and help them be at their best. Go listen to my conversation with Coach cow, Episode 22. Here on how leaders lead.

Could you just tell us about your upbringing? Where'd you grow up? And did you have any real pivot moments in your your early days?

Indra Nooyi 28:06

You know, thank you for that question. I was born and brought up in India in the south of India in a city that was called Madras now called Chennai. And I was born and brought up in a very conservative South Indian family, a very middle class family, we will reach an intellect, we were rich in family connections being together, we didn't have much money. But it didn't matter. Because we didn't know what having money was we were very happy with what we had. We focused on education, we focused on respecting each other, working hard. And my grandfather, my paternal grandfather was a very strong figure. And our family always believed that it didn't matter if you're a girl or a boy. Just study hard. Work hard and always deliver on what you committed to deliver upon. And if you did that, your life is going to be set forever. And don't be too ambitious. Don't be too political. Don't always be thinking about the next thing you want to do. Just do what you're given. Do it well, and do it better than anybody else can do it. And if you did, that, the whole world was set up and take notice. And that's the spirit that he inculcated in us. And we didn't even know what having money was. We were happy with the little we had, but the family was together, the extended family was together. And we just built off of each other and just worked hard. That's all I know.

David Novak 29:27

Yeah. Well, you know, you have that love and supported family. That's that's a tremendous blessing. And you really don't even know your upbringing may not be that. privileged, you got that support to take you with you. That's fantastic. We

Indra Nooyi 29:40

had a different kind of privilege. We had the privilege of togetherness.

David Novak 29:44

Yeah, that's great. That's a great phrase, you know, and I know you're huge into education, and you actually got a bachelor's in physics, chemistry and mathematics. I mean, you know, what else could you have done and during your time there, that's great. What made you want to go get an MBA

Indra Nooyi 30:00

Well, I graduated from college, when I was 18 years old, and graduated high school when I was 15. I did three years of college because I skipped a year of college. And in India, you go on to graduate school immediately after graduate from college. So at age 18, I went to graduate school in India, and graduated the year 20. And started to work. And, you know, you always want to be an overachiever, because everybody around you is an overachiever. And everybody is trying to do their absolute best and move ahead. So for the sake of your family, for the sake of bringing pride to your parents, which is really what we were all motivated by, it's interesting. We weren't doing all this for ourselves, we wanted everybody to say that the parents have brought you up. So Well, we did it, because we wanted our parents to feel proud and our family to be viewed as awesome. And so we all work very hard, you know, tried to get through school and college quickly, and started to work. And, you know, my first job was with the textile company had a great time learned a lot, then I was a product manager at Johnson and Johnson for personal products, at a time when India didn't allow advertising of personal products. And it was always sold from under the counter. So I learned a lot about how to sell a product that couldn't be marketed. That couldn't be talked about, but was necessary. And in both jobs that I was in, I was stretched beyond my wildest imagination. I had mentors who always told me you can do it, even when I said, Oh, my God, I have no idea how to do this. They said, You can do it, go figure it out. And so I went out and figured it out, I worked my tail off, I never left the office until I figured it out. Because I never wondered let the company down. I didn't want to let my family down. I didn't want to let myself down. And so I accelerated through these two companies. And then I realized that I really had not been old enough to get a master's degree when I did. And that's when I applied to the Yale School of Management, and came to the United States to get what I call a real master's degree.

David Novak 32:10

Well, that had to be it's just such a dramatic change to go from India, to the United States. And, you know, what was it like to come into a new culture like that? And how did you get acclimated?

Indra Nooyi 32:21

You know, the first thing I tell you, I was shocked, surprised, amazed, worried, because I didn't think my parents would give me permission to come to the United States alone. You know, with the family background that we had, it was very protective. So when they agreed to allow me to come to Yale to study I was like, Are you sure? Yes, not next door. It's a New Haven, Connecticut, I'm going to be 1000 miles away from you. They said, Look, we trust you. Go ahead, and, you know, strike out on your own. So I want to first say how grateful I am to my parents for buying me that air ticket, putting me on that plane, even though I had a scholarship and loan, the fact that they allowed me to go was a big deal. When I came to the United States, first of all, I was lonely like hell, because I never traveled outside the country. And, you know, it took a while getting used to everything I was vegetarian, I didn't know how to get vegetarian food in New Haven at that time. And yet, at that time, in 1978, didn't have a mechanism to integrate international students easily now. It's fantastic. But then it wasn't that systematized. So the first couple of weeks were dreadful. I wanted to hop on the plane and go back. I didn't know what to do. But you know what, little by little, the other students at Yale reached out, a host family reached out. Other international students got together and built ourselves a little ecosystem. And before the month was done, I was as American as the others. And this is the amazing thing about the United States how we reach out and embrace people who are completely different than us. And I tell you, that was just a wonderful, wonderful time. And I never looked back from those days.

David Novak 34:08

You know, you talked about how your parents gave the opportunity to come the United States and you could possibly strike out. It's a baseball metaphor. I happen to know you are an incredible baseball fan. Now, how did that happen?

Indra Nooyi 34:20

Well, you see, I used to play cricket. When I was in India, it was a baton ball sport. And when I landed in the United States, I had to be involved or learn or watch a baton ball sport. And this was 1978. The big year that remember the Yankees being 14 games behind the Red Sox and then catching up and the big Bucky dent game. Then they went on to win the World Series. So I sat there in the dorm room in the common room, and the other kids explained baseball to me, and I fell in love with the New York Yankees. I didn't fall in love with baseball as a whole. I fell in love with the Yankees and that love affair with the Yankees has not died even today. And Since then, I've been a diehard Yankees fan through thick and thin. And I follow them all the time and they're in my blood. And I love love love watching them play.

David Novak 35:10

Yeah, after you got your MBA at Yale, you started out in the consulting world at Boston Consulting Group, what you know, what, what were your key learnings from from going into an environment like that where obviously, a lot of high powered IQ points in that company, getting into

Indra Nooyi 35:25

consulting was considered sort of a feather in people's cap, because it was so hard to get into a Boston Consulting Group, or McKinsey or Booz Allen in those days. And everybody interviewed and very few gotten. And so I was scared to even interview because I had no idea whether I'd get in. But you go through the seven 810 interviews, each one is a case study. And I go through the system, and I joined the Boston Consulting Group. And I must tell you, in my six and a half years at BCG, I probably learned the equivalent of 15 years in a regular corporate job, because I learned multiple industries, multiple issues are dealt with multiple levels of the client, dealt with strategy issues of the 25,000 foot level, and operating issues to the ground level, dealt with friendly clients and hostile clients. So to sort of indoctrination by fire, David, and working with a group of consultants who are so smart and so brilliant, sort of raised your game. And the time that I was at BCG was invaluable. And I think I learned so much in such a short period, that I wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the world. From that, what

David Novak 36:39

did you really glean in terms of what a consultant should really provide a client?

Indra Nooyi 36:44

First thing, a consultant, you know, is not brought in because of the knowledge of the industry. They're not brought in, just because they're objective, because you can ask any man on the road or woman on the road, and they'll give you an objective perspective, consultants are brought in to provide frameworks provide you a way of thinking, provide the company, you know, a framework that challenges status quo in the company, or reaffirms the way things are being done in the company. Too often, we think the consultants the expert is going to give us the answer. What I learned in my consulting time is how do you develop frameworks to help companies, you know, go through a thought process, and that framework was developed based on a rich understanding of the firm itself based on all the work they'd done, but my own understanding based on the work that I had done, and then I watched my time through BCG, my frameworks got more rigorous, more well thought through more clients sensitive.

David Novak 37:43

That's great. When you came to PepsiCo, you hit the ground running and you quickly became the CFO. And you know, I don't think many people really recognize this, but you were really the architect of spinning off Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and KFC, which I had the privilege of running. And, you know, PepsiCo at the time had those three divisions plus Frito, lay and Pepsi. You know, that's that was a huge decision. And you, you, you convinced Roger and Rico, who was the CEO at that time how to do it. And you had to convince a lot of other people that this made sense. How did you go through that process?

Indra Nooyi 38:17

Again, it comes back to this notion of don't start with the predetermined conclusion that the restaurants had to be spun off. We knew that the restaurant operating system was very different. And as you remember, David, you and I worked very closely together. The restaurant operating system was different. In many ways. What we were doing was we were trying to move it to a packaged goods culture, even though it was a service business. And it was two operating systems that coexist in this PepsiCo system. So the first thing we had to do was rather than just say, We ought to spin out the restaurants, understand the restaurant business, understand, you know, what's the future of the restaurant business? What's needed to be successful in the restaurant business? Why can't PepsiCo be successful in the business? And we had to do that deep analysis so that we could convince people on facts, not on emotion, because analysts at that time was saying, Just spin it off. But you know what, you don't give away one of your children. Because the restaurants business was, you know, grown in PepsiCo, and everybody in restaurants were PepsiCo people that we all loved had great relationships with. So in order to come up with any decision regarding restaurants, whether to keep it improve its performance operated differently, or spin it out, we had to understand the business cold. So for six months, in a very small circle, we embarked on a very deep strategic analysis of the QSR industry. What was going on? What are the trends? You know, how is this whole new build versus franchise versus operating by the company? How's that model changing? How would the economics of restaurant management changing what kind of people should be in restaurants and again, using the console halting analogy, visit visited restaurants spoke to owners spoke to franchisees watched franchisees that work, as opposed to company people at work, you know, understood the business ground up, understood the economics, understood his future cold. And it led us to the conclusion that not to spin out the restaurant, that's not the word I would use, I say we decided to unfetter the restaurant business from the rest of PepsiCo, very important, because it was a wonderful business. But it was, in fact, prisoner to the packaged goods culture. And when we unfettered the restaurant from the packaged goods, culture, and allowed you to be who you were, and put the right leadership, ie, you, all of a sudden, the company thrived because you enhance that service culture. You enhanced the operating model. And it was one of the best performing stocks and enhance the shareholder value of existing PepsiCo shareholders and all the new young shareholders that came in. So I think it was a big win win.

David Novak 41:03

Absolutely. You know, and I thank you very much for his I had the time of my life building that company is great. What anxieties did you have personally, as a leader stepping into a role like that? You see,

Indra Nooyi 41:14

the period from 2001 to 2006, was the glory days of the CPG world. Walmart was growing in leaps and bounds. You know, the developed world was doing very well emerging markets, but only then emerging China, India were just emerging. But it was a glorious time where, you know, everything was coming up roses. Yet, as I looked at the economy, as I looked at the trends, I realized that we were in for rocky times, I saw Walmart slowing down and growth, I saw a looming financial crisis because of the excessive leverage in the system. And I saw tremendous growth in the emerging markets where we were underrepresented. So I'm sitting here going, how are we going to navigate as a company through all these changes. And while we had to deal with all these external changes, internally in the company, our bottling system was behaving, you know, in interesting ways, we had to address that. And we had to figure out how to do all this without having the investors say, Hey, why aren't you delivering the kind of returns that we expect from PepsiCo? So there was a lot of anxiety when I took over. And I realized that I could have all the anxieties inside, but to the company, I had to project confidence, optimism, a can do spirit, and a must do resolve. So it was tough times, I must

David Novak 42:39

say, when you when you have this macro environment, you know, that's right out there. And you know, you're the CEO, and you want to project this? Did you have any tricks that you would use to get yourself all ready to go to project what you had to project as a leader, even though you had some of these concerns?

Indra Nooyi 42:57

Well, you know, the one thing I've learned is don't, don't lie to the people don't tell your people one thing when the reality is something different. So I confronted the truth with my people and said, Hey, this is the nature of the environment in front of us, Let's all make sure we all understand it together, because we're going to have to navigate it together. But it's not enough to tell them what the environment is going to look like. I also had to tell them exactly what we were going to do. What we were going to do in the short term, medium term and long term, I told them the short term what they needed to do just to keep the performance going, in the medium term, what kind of acquisitions we were going to make to bolster the company's portfolio in emerging and developing markets. And for the for the long term, what were we going to do today to invest in r&d, to start the portfolio transformation, to put in place multiple initiatives, which will not pay out today, but require investment today, to pay out in the long term? Now, I was scared, David, because I didn't know whether people were subscribed to this. What surprised me the most was they did, they were in fact, relieved that that's what we were going to do. Because we're all seeing the trends. And then we just

David Novak 44:11

knew you didn't have your head in the sand and that you got it and then that gave them confidence that you could go into the, into the future to gather, you know, and or one of the things that you really espouse is the importance of corporations making a difference in in the world and that, you know, we can really do that, you know, and in you really have embarked on for a number of years, this whole idea of performance with purpose. What do you mean by that? And how did you get to that?

Indra Nooyi 44:39

I've performance with purpose has been the driving principle of this company. And I tell you, it's a profound set of words because initially people will say, Oh, this is about corporate social responsibility. It's not because CSR by itself is how you spend the money you make, you know, when you give to Some charitable causes. To me performance with purpose was how do you drive performance with the deliberate sense of purpose, which enhances the delivery of performance? So it was a virtuous circle. And purpose in my mind had three elements to it. The first was human sustainability, how do you transform this product portfolio? So going into the future, it was future proofed and kept drawing. The second part was environmental sustainability, how do you make sure that you reduce your carbon footprint, reduce water usage, because if you did that, you lower costs, and societies give you a license to operate. Because if you use a lot of water in and your plant is in a water, distressed area, people throw you out. And the third part was talent, sustainability, how do you make sure you have an environment where you bring the best and brightest into PepsiCo, and simply put, you cannot deliver performance unless you transform the product portfolio because the consumer was changing. If you don't get a license to operate from society, which is part of environmental sustainability, you can't deliver performance. And if you don't have great people, you can't deliver performance. So to me, profits, product, climate and people is what the ecosystem is all about. And why did I do it? I honestly believe companies are like little republics. You know, given our market cap, we are the 37th largest country in the world. And we are a company which has global governance. And you know, countries don't have global governance, they have country governance. So we can actually lift and shift best practices, we can leverage our powerful distribution systems do so much to help countries around the world to address their issues, which in turn creates more consumers for our products. So I honestly believe that if we wanted to be the good company, good commercially good ethically, we had to embrace performance with purpose in order to do our duty as a responsible multinational in every country in which we operated. And I felt that that was the only way corporations should behave. And that's why performance purpose was born in 2006. It has sustained even today. And if you ask anybody in PepsiCo, they'll tell you, that's why they started PepsiCo.

David Novak 47:20

That's, that's great. And, you know, I think that people don't want to go to work every day to be a part of something mediocre. They want to go to work every day to be a part of something they're proud of, and really work on greatness. And I think that's a very aspirational vision for your company. Now, I know along the way you made you developed a framework one of the frameworks that you learned maybe from your consulting days or the importance of the framework where you decided to categorize PepsiCo products is as fun for you better for you and good for you. And, and, you know, this put each of the products into into one of those buckets. Now, what was your thinking behind that?

Indra Nooyi 47:58

You know, the product portfolio is so broad and so diverse. And, you know, I felt that PepsiCo sometimes is viewed as a soda and chips company, when in reality, we had a wide variety of products, the good food products but products with positive nutrition products with grains, fruit and vegetable protein, sports nutrition, that's what we call good for you. are fun for you, on the other hand was your sodas, full sugar sodas, your Lay's Doritos all of that was your fun for you products when you had a diet product which was a soda with zero calorie that was a better for you product. And so our goal was invest in all three buy dial up the better for you and good for you. Now when our thinking is evolved David in the better for you category earlier better for you was versus the fun for you. So if it was a zero calorie product was better for you. If it had reduced sugar, it was better for you. But it was always relative to the fun for you. Recently though, we've said let's make the definition more science based and use external externally developed criteria. So if externally they say products which have so much saturated fat is considered Alright, products with this level of sodium is okay. Products with this level of sugar is okay to consume. Then, we use those criteria to define what we call a guilt free portfolio, which include products with positive nutrition like Quaker Oats and Tropicana juice and products that scientific authorities like the who the Institute of Medicine have deemed adequate levels or acceptable levels of sugar, fat and salt. And so we've now defined the portfolio in a broader way. And we are working the whole portfolio to move more and more from fun for you to guilt free products and the ideas enjoy our products

David Novak 49:59

and So you can do you make great tasting food and all different venues, which is fantastic. And you know, I know though one of the challenges you had when you went for this transformation is you've got Pepsi and Lay's potato chips and Doritos, which are the fun for you products. And as you're trying to transform the company move into the better for a year or the area where you know, the consumers gone. You had a lot of people saying, Hey, don't you believe in our core products? And how did you handle that?

Indra Nooyi 50:27

Oh, boy, that was tough times, David, because, you know, I'm a full sugar Pepsi drinker. And I eat a bag of Lay's every day. So I actually love those products. And people who complain to me that I should not transform the portfolio invest in what we have today, I did something very simple. I said to them, Look, guys, let's look at the products that deplete when we have our meetings. When we were in the 1990s, everybody was drinking full sugar, Pepsi and do and CRMs and things like that, as you go to the 2000 2006. If I looked at the depletion rate, it was more died Pepsi, Pepsi Max. And as you got to 2006 2007, the trend shifted again, we were consuming more Aquafina. And I said to them hang on a second, if we are changing our own eating and drinking habits. Why do you think consumers are then are changing the eating and drinking habits? We're becoming a repertoire, I'm not suggesting you should swing the pendulum widely. All that I'm saying is, we ought to invest broadly, in fun for you, better for you, and good for you. And if we don't offer a balanced portfolio of great tasting products to our consumers, we're going to lose this competitive battle. Initially there was resistance, I think, emotionally they bought it. But intellectually they were not willing to accept it. Right. Right. And how

David Novak 51:53

did you personally handle the that criticism that you know, you were getting in some corners of the world,

Indra Nooyi 51:59

I in many corners, many, many corners, retired executives, in a long serving executive, some investors, I think what really withstood the test of time was two things. One, I had tremendous resolve on our strategy, I was convinced this was the only strategy this company should be following. And the only way we're going to change that direction is that the board had fired me. Second, we had an unbelievably good board, the board bought into the strategy and said, This is the only way you should lead the company. And when you had the board in your corner, and you know a vocal involved, detail oriented board in your corner, who we're not going to be swung by any disgruntled ex employee, you know that you're on the right track. So the combination of the unbelievable board support, and my own personal results, is what allowed me to keep the strategy going. And then you know, our employee started to buy in. And, you know, one success begets other successes, and that's why we are where we are today.

David Novak 53:03

Absolutely. That's great. And, you know, when you're speaking of your employees, you know, what do you do to really motivate the troops? What do you what do you think is the key to motivation?

Indra Nooyi 53:14

Now, PepsiCo is a great place to work. So first of all, people love coming to work at PepsiCo. But David, you know, we've learned a lot from you to this culture of recognition is very important. People like to be recognized for small things and big things. And we've put in place many many recognition programs and PepsiCo in on a day to day basis any any manager can recognize somebody at PepsiCo by giving them a coupon or a little gift or a little a ticket to something so you can do anything on a local basis. But in an institutionalized basis, we actually do a lot of recognition. Every year we do the Ring of Honor, which is the frontline salesman of PepsiCo, salesmen and saleswomen. About 300 of them come to purchase from around the world. And for three days, we treat them fantastically, and say thank you to them for this unbelievable job. They're doing the front lines of PepsiCo, because they do a good job and we get all the credit. So these are unbelievable people who make PepsiCo look good every day on the shelves. So that's a big program. Eight years ago, I put in something called circle of champions, which is for all the people in the factory floors. Because we were lauding the salespeople, we forgot the people in the factory floors. So the circle of champions is all the people in the factory floor, same number that come in in October, and we have this unbelievable celebration of their successes. We do the heavy rustle diversity and inclusion. Are we really promoting diversity? Are we embracing diversity? Are we complimenting people on their diversity initiatives? We do that the Steve Randleman DNI award, we give our r&d awards every function has an award ceremony, which gives awards to people who do A great job. And then people like our caddy, give out this crushed coke can for somebody who does something to take on. Yeah, but you know, you do all those things to be learned from you. And so I think across this company, this cultural recognition is simply ingrained. And from my perspective, one of the things that I've gotten the most satisfaction, restoring award is not giving them a little certificate or whatever. When I write letters to parents of some of my executives, and I tell the parents what a great job their son or daughter is doing. That recognition is worth more than money, stock grants, hugs, tickets, anything, because at the end of the day, and I go back to where I started, when your parents say to you, I am so proud of you. And your boss has wrote to me saying that you awesome. And the look on their face, is worth a million dollars. And that's what I do very regularly in PepsiCo because to me, that gives me more satisfaction than anything else.

David Novak 56:06

You clearly understand the power of recognition and the privilege of being able to give it and the privilege of being the CEO and what that would mean to a mom and dad to receive a letter from you. That's outstanding. You know, PepsiCo is known for its leadership development. And, you know, what do you think makes a great leader? What do you really look for in leadership?

Indra Nooyi 56:28

You know, there's all these soft skills, hard skills, people, you know, look at all of these tests that people can take to assess for leadership qualities. But when I interview somebody, I look for two or three things. First, is I talked to the person and I have the conversation with them? Are they curious? Do they really want to be a lifelong student? Do they ask the right questions to get to the next level of insight? That's something I look for very carefully, because I hate people who walk in and want to maintain status quo. I love people who are lifelong learners, we're always pushing the boundaries. That's one thing I look for. Second, I look for people who believe in high quality work. Do people really sweat the details? Do they really want to look at the product that they turn out and say, Yeah, this is the absolute best I could have done as opposed to, let's just get something out to her. She'll fix it anyway, I hate that kind of performance. And the third and the most important, I should have started with it, but I'm going to end with it as I look for people who throw their head, heart and hands into the job. Sometimes people just come to work saying, hey, it's a job. It's not a job. It's a calling, it's a passion. It's a it's a something that consumes your life. And you've got to come in with a sense of optimism, you've got to come in with a sense of, I can do it. A sense of I can do it, it must be done. I'm gonna get everybody with me to get it done. There's got to be this constant love for the company that you project constantly. And, you know, when we do the interview process, not so many people bubble up through these criteria, they pass on the first and second when it comes to the third. Now when they show this apathy, a little bit of a screen in front of them. I don't like the my like the Scorpios like you and me who bring everything the kitchen sink. Because we just throw ourselves into the job and we love what we do. We just I love what I do. David, I've always loved what I was doing.

David Novak 58:35

Yeah. You know, one of the things that you've demonstrated in this podcast is just your belief in all people, and how everybody makes a difference in your company. I knew I would learn some more by it's been in some more time with you, and I loved every bit of it. Thank you very much,

Indra Nooyi 58:50

David, thank you for having me. And I look forward to seeing you again.

John Calipari 59:02

Now we're

David Novak 59:02

all driven to be successful. But when you spend time with Andrew, you can see that we unlock a whole new level of success when we elevate those around us. And now it's time for my favorite part of our podcast episode. This is where I give you some coaching to help you develop as a leader this week as part of your weekly development plan. Here's what I want you to do. Make it a point intentionally lift up someone on your team, you probably already know exactly who it needs to be. Maybe shoot them a thoughtful email, give them a public shout out, create a development opportunity. Heck, you can even take a page out of Andrews playbook and write a note to their parents. But find more and more ways to build up your team and I guarantee you, you'll find your leadership skills will build up as well. So do you want to know how leaders lead what we learned today is the great leaders look for ways to elevate others. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday You get to listen in. While I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be

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