My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future

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In the single most valuable corporate benefit I received in my early career, the head of BCG's Chicago office, Carl Stern, called to tell me to take up to six months off—with pay—to help care for my father. (Alok - Amazing examples of EMPATHY from employers) If you’re searching for insights into what makes great leaders and companies, this is the book for you.

We still have relatively few women with the experience and fortitude to be considered for the position of CEO of a multibillion-dollar enterprise. This is a real issue because we are not enabling so many talented young women to achieve their full potential—a loss for the overall economy.” I had a 12-year tenure as CEO, and you can either say I ran three four-year tenures or two six-year tenures. In the first six years of my CEO-ship, I was navigating through the financial crisis and creating a more Nooyi’s memoir humanizes her in a way that former news headlines on her executive business presence did not. Readers witness firsthand the flair that her family, her thatha included, saw in the first woman of color and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company.One of two things has to happen for us to really make boards think about D&I in a wholly different way. Boards need to change their mindset so they can start to embrace these notions, and they need I also had no regrets about leaving my job and was sure I wouldn’t miss my role as PepsiCo’s chair either, when I stepped down in a few months.”

I think that leaders need to understand the details behind what they are approving before they affix their signature to anything. This is not about trusting the people that work for you. It’s about basic responsibility. Don’t be a ‘pass-through.’ … I know I drove people crazy with questions, but this was my job.” I think women today are held to a different standard. They’re too loud or too soft. They’re too emotional or not emotional enough. They’re too strident, or they’re too weak or passive. Every possible badge is given to women. It’s disconcerting because you can feel it. You get these badges. You can see the looks among men when women dress a certain way. It’s the environment we live in, whether we like it or not. And that ranges from every business event you go to, every social event you go to, and sometimes even in boardrooms.

Are you diverse? On what metrics are you diverse? Do you have ethnic diversity? Gender diversity? Racial diversity? All that stuff. But inclusiveness is a state of mind. It’s an emotion. Are you going to make

talent? What does the retention number look like? How many [diverse employees] are getting developed and promoted? Let me see the organization’s health scores. Do diverse people feel included? Does everybody feel included, but particularly the diverse people? Are they underrepresented in the country?” Gritty, joyous, and visionary, Nooyi tells the story of an everyday person living an extraordinary life, leading beautifully and confidently from the front. A must-read for all.” Anyway, when I was at IIM Calcutta I was a year junior to Nooyi, who was then stylishly skinny unlike her wellfed American avatar. Or perhaps it's just that she has been excessively sampling Pepsi's 'food' products, like the ten yearold daughter of my impecunious household help who is already suffering from child obesity, along with countless other victims of Pepsico's successful implementation of her strategy of targeting so-called Third World countries as "profit centres", given the saturation of her North American home base. To solve the work-family conundrum, Nooyi's points on interconnected areas of PAID LEAVE, FLEXIBILITY & PREDICTABILITY, and CARE are crucial. Repeat after me: Paid maternity and paternity leave must be mandated by ALL governments, but especially the US government, ASAP.

Success!

I am writing this as a cultural anthropologist and Indologist, as well as alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and retired member of the Indian Administrative Service. I found both aspects okay, her story as well as her opinions & advice. As many have mentioned, the book doesn’t give deeper insights on her thoughts through her various life experiences & milestones. It strangely feels guarded, like she’s trying to sound like an HBR case study. inclusion [D&I] vice president alone is the right approach. Diversity and inclusion cannot simply be delegated to one individual. That is a cop-out. It should be on the CEO’s plate as a priority and Writing this book has been a new experience for me—a journey, a labor of love, a different kind of hard work. I didn’t intend to write my own story in such detail when I started out. I thought that I would write a few articles filled with facts and figures on how we must support women, young family builders, and our collective well-being, and