Former CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi visited Quinnipiac University to receive the M&T Bank Center for Women and Business 2025 Impact Award and to participate in the third annual Eileen Peters Farley ‘68 Endowed Speaker Series for Women and Business on March 6. 

The impact award gives Quinnipiac an opportunity to recognize a notable businesswoman each year. Meanwhile, the speaker series was created in memory of Quinnipiac alumna Eileen Peters Farley, who was an accomplished entrepreneur and president of the university’s Southern California alumni chapter. She died from pancreatic cancer. 

As attendees walked to the Mount Carmel Auditorium in the Communications, Computing and Engineering building, they were given copies of “My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future,” Nooyi’s autobiography, as well as Pepsi cans in a variety of flavors. 

Tuvana Rua, the director of M&T Bank Center for Women and Business, kicked off the event by introducing Farley’s daughter, Jessica Geis, who followed in her mother’s footsteps and became an entrepreneur.

Geis spoke about her mother’s love of Quinnipiac, which led Geis and late father to create the endowment in Farley’s name in 2018.

“She would always tell us, and this will be my advice to you as well … ‘don’t squander your opportunities and your intelligence and your talent, their gifts from God, and they’re not yours to squander,’” Geist said. “They’re your responsibility and obligation to develop and share with the world and to continue to help others and leave a legacy of positivity and great impact that lifts others up.”

After Geis spoke, Nooyi and Quinnipiac President Judy Olian began a fireside chat. Nooyi discussed her recent travels to her home country, India, her upbringing, the path that led her to becoming PepsiCo’s CEO and the challenges she faced in the role.

Earlier in March, Nooyi traveled to India with Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, who was her classmate at Yale University’s School of Business. Nooyi, Lamont and a team of state delegates went to discuss how to build stronger economic ties between Connecticut and India.

“I’d say, the bottom line is there’s activity, progress, innovation (and) entrepreneurship thriving in India, but it’s not the India I knew,” Nooyi said. 

Nooyi was born in 1955, shortly after India gained independence. She attended a Catholic school, where there was constant pressure to succeed in classes. This pressure was furthered by her grandfather, who was the head of her family. He cared deeply about academics, and would help Nooyi and her siblings with their school work. 

She earned her bachelor degree from Madras Christian College and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta. Nooyi then attended Yale, where she earned a Master of Public and Private Management. 

During her time at Yale, Nooyi worked multiple jobs to pay off her student loans. That drive in her career and schooling is what led to her first job at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a major consulting firm. 

“When consulting firms would come to (my professors) and say, ‘give us the top five kids we should seriously look at,’ they always had my name on the list,” Nooyi said. “And why was that? I worked very hard. And I worked hard because I felt I was given a privilege, and I was given a unique opportunity to come to the United States and come to Yale.”

Nooyi was exposed to many industries because of her time at BCG. It also allowed her to interact with people of high power in the companies, which helped her to prepare for her future roles.

Shelter joined Motorola in later years, where she became vice president and director of corporate strategy and planning. She moved to Asea Brown Boveri as the senior vice president of strategy, planning and strategic marketing. 

Then in 1994, Nooyi joined PepsiCo as its senior vice president of strategic planning. From there, she was promoted to senior vice president for corporate strategy and development, then CFO and president. 

When she was the CFO and president of PepsiCo, Nooyi was presented with a $1.5 billion plan to redesign PepsiCo’s IT architecture. The plan was approved by her before going to the CEO, and she wanted to make sure she fully understood it before signing it. 

Despite being rushed by members of the IT department, she spent six weeks reading a textbook related to information for the IT redesign, and meeting with the professors of the textbook to gain a better understanding of it. 

Even though this information was not related to what she studied throughout college, she felt it was crucial for her to learn about it before signing off on a large plan. 

“Don’t sign something until you understand what it is, because at some point, it might come back to bite you,” Nooyi said.

Then in 2006, Nooyi became CEO of PepsiCo.

Up until Nooyi, all the PepsiCo CEOs were white, male, Christian veterans. Although the CEO before her faced some backlash for his decision on the new CEO, he made sure to let people know that he believed Nooyi was the most qualified person for this position. 

To get to this point, she continued to make sacrifices like spending long hours in the office and being away from family.

“I was an immigrant from an emerging market,” Nooyi said. “I was colored in corporate America, where there wasn’t anybody like me at that time, and I was I didn’t realize it then I was breaking so many barriers. The only way to do it at that time was being better than anybody else.”

During her time as PepsiCo’s CEO, she led large transactions for the company, like acquiring Tropicana and Quaker Oats. She also divested in restaurant brands like Taco Bell. 

Nooyi also developed the consumer goods chessboard, which allowed her and her employees to visualize the potential deals various food and beverage companies could make to improve their position in the market. This is the project she is most proud of during her time as CEO.

During the fireside chat, Nooyi emphasized to students the importance of learning, even after college.

“You have to remain a lifelong learner,” Nooryi said. “Curiosity has got to be (your) middle name, because the world around you is changing in such profound ways.”

Some students, like Brett DeBell, a first-year finance major, came to the event as a part of their class. DeBell came out of the fireside chat recognizing the importance of consistently learning new skills and information.

“You always have to keep learning,” DeBell said. “Just because you leave Quinnipiac doesn’t mean that your learning stops. You have to keep innovating yourself and just learn more.”