WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast LIVE: Featuring Fmr. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi

Executive produced by Neil A. Carousso

SAVE THE DATE: Participate in a LIVE conversation with one of Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in Business on Thursday, March 24 at 9 AM EDT at WCBS880.com!

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – Join WCBS business reporter Joe Connolly live on Thursday, March 24 at 9 AM ET for a discussion with Indra Nooyi, an international star of business who came from humble beginnings in India and rose through the corporate ranks to lead and transform PepsiCo, headquartered in Westchester County.

Nooyi is one of the most influential, admired and forward-thinking leaders of our time.

As a Fortune 500 CEO, she spearheaded PepsiCo’s Performance with Purpose initiative to develop more health-conscious and nutritious products while limiting the company’s environmental footprint, which was initially met with resistance from her fellow executives. Nooyi will address the art of making tough decisions aimed at long-term growth and sustainability.

“Business today is not for people who sort of are stuck in the business models of the past,” Nooyi said in a conversation with Connolly in advance of the live virtual event. “You’ve got to sit down and say, ‘Coming out of the pandemic, given where consumers are going, how’s my offering differentiated enough that people want to come to it? And, how do I then figure out how to get in in front of the consumer and keep that excitement and novelty factor going?’”

She will also answer your questions throughout the virtual event during “LIVE with Joe” segments in which Connolly will facilitate an engaging conversation between Nooyi and our loyal audience of business owners, entrepreneurs and dreamers. You’ll be able to comment during the livestream with questions on sales, operations, labor, or anything else you would like to ask Nooyi. Don’t miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get business advice from a giant in corporate America!

“You don’t have to use shareholder value, but for small and medium-sized enterprises, thinking back and saying, ‘How do I keep growing?’ Growth is oxygen,” explained Nooyi, adding she uses profitability to measure business growth. “You’re not in the nonprofit business. How do you grow and generate profits at the same time?”

The Yale University alumna is the author of the book “My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future” in which she offers a blueprint for advancing society in a post-pandemic world. Nooyi, a mother of two daughters, writes about her challenges raising a family while traveling and working long hours. She will share her inspiring story juggling family and career, and her message for today’s business leaders on how to set your team up for success and achieve work-life balance.

As a resident of Connecticut, Nooyi serves as co-chair of Gov. Ned Lamont’s Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group, which consists of a panel of local health, business, workforce, and education leaders who have consulted on the reopening of the state’s economy during the COVID-19 health emergency. In this role, Nooyi has taken steps to learn epidemiology from health experts to inform her recommendations on the economic recovery.

Nooyi is the epitome of the American Dream and a firm believer in how businesses can make a difference, inspire generations, and rebuild communities. On the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast, she will give business owners an inspirational message for recovering fully from COVID-19 and innovating for long-term success. Nooyi will also provide specific growth ideas that you can apply to your business.

Join Joe Connolly and Indra Nooyi for the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast LIVE on Thursday, March 24. Log on to WCBS880.com at 9 AM ET to watch and participate. We look forward to connecting with you then!

About Indra Nooyi:

Indra Nooyi is the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo (2006-2019); a Fortune 50 company with operations in more than 180 countries.

In this role, Mrs. Nooyi was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to do what’s right for the business by being responsive to the needs of the world around us. As part of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo was focused on delivering sustained growth by making more nutritious products, limiting its environmental footprint and protecting the planet, and empowering its associates and people in the communities it serves. During her tenure, PepsiCo grew net revenue more than 80%, and PepsiCo’s total shareholder return was 162%. Nooyi directed the company’s global strategy for more than a decade and led its transformation, including the divestiture of its restaurants into the successful YUM! Brands, Inc., the acquisition of Tropicana and the merger with Quaker Oats that brought the vital Quaker and Gatorade businesses to PepsiCo, the merger with PepsiCo’s anchor bottlers, and the acquisition of the Russian company Wimm-Bill-Dann, the largest international acquisition in PepsiCo’s history.

Prior to becoming CEO, Mrs. Nooyi served as PepsiCo’s President and Chief Financial Officer beginning in 2001, when she was also named to the company’s Board of Directors. She was responsible for corporate functions, including finance, strategy, business process optimization, corporate platforms and innovation, procurement, investor relations and information technology. From February 2000 to April 2001, Mrs. Nooyi was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PepsiCo. Mrs. Nooyi also served as PepsiCo’s Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development from 1996 until 2000, and as PepsiCo’s Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning from 1994 until 1996. Before joining PepsiCo in 1994, Mrs. Nooyi spent four years as Senior Vice President of Strategy, Planning and Strategic Marketing for Asea Brown Boveri, a Zurich-based industrials company.

She was part of the top management team responsible for the company’s U.S. business as well as its worldwide industrial businesses, representing about $10 billion of ABB’s $30 billion in global sales. Between 1986 and 1990, Mrs. Nooyi worked for Motorola, where she was Vice President and Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning, having joined the company as the business development executive responsible for its automotive and industrial electronic group. Prior to Motorola, she spent six years directing international corporate strategy projects at The Boston Consulting Group. Her clients ranged from textiles and consumer goods companies to retailers and specialty chemicals producers. Mrs. Nooyi began her career in India, where she held product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson and Mettur Beardsell, Ltd., a textile firm.

Mrs. Nooyi served as a member of the PepsiCo Board of Directors from 2001 and February 2019. Mrs. Nooyi is now a member of the board of Amazon, where she chairs the audit committee. She sits on the supervisory board of Philips, where she is also a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee. She is a member of the International Advisory Council of Temasek; an independent director of the International Cricket Council; and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She is on the Dean’s Advisory Council at MIT’s School of Engineering, and a member of the MIT Corporation. She also serves on the boards of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Partnership for Public Service. Additionally, Mrs. Nooyi is the Class of 1951 Chair for the Study of Leadership at West Point where she helps enhance the ability of both the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and the U.S. Military Academy to fulfill the mission of developing leaders of character. She also serves as an advisor to several early-stage companies.

She is the author of the book, My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future, her much-anticipated memoir that offers insight and a call-to-action from one of the world’s most-admired business leaders on how our society can blend work and family — and advance women — in the 21st century. Mrs. Nooyi has received fifteen honorary degrees. In 2007, the Government of India awarded her the Padma Bhushan, the country’s 3rd highest civilian honor. That same year, she was named an “Outstanding American by Choice” by the US State Department. In 2019, her portrait was inducted into the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. In 2021, Indra became an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and joined the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art. She was also inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame and National Women’s Hall of Fame.

She holds a B.S. from Madras Christian College, an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, and a Master of Public and Private Management from Yale University.

Mrs. Nooyi is married to Raj Nooyi and has two daughters, Preetha and Tara.

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