Business leader, bestselling author Indra Nooyi to speak at Maverick Speakers Series
Former PepsiCo chair and CEO Indra Nooyi, a business leader, New York Times bestselling author and revered role model for women and immigrants, is the next speaker at The University of Texas at Arlington’s Maverick Speakers Series.
Nooyi will be having a moderated conversation as part of the Maverick Speakers Series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 21, at Texas Hall, 701 W. Nedderman Drive. She will also be signing copies of her New York Times bestselling book, “My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future,” after the event.
Nooyi was chair and CEO of PepsiCo from 2006-19. In this role, she was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, a corporate promise to achieve long-term profitable growth while leaving a positive impact on society and the environment. During her tenure, PepsiCo grew net revenue more than 80%, and its total shareholder return was 162%.
She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Science and the American Philosophical Society. She has been included on Fortune magazine’s annual list of “Most Powerful Women” on several occasions and has received similar accolades from other publications, including Forbes’ list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.”
Prior to becoming CEO, Nooyi served as PepsiCo’s president and chief financial officer and was a member of the company’s board of directors. Before joining PepsiCo, she spent four years at Asea Brown Boveri, a Zurich-based company, and four years at Motorola, where she was vice president and director of corporate strategy and planning.
Nooyi and her husband, Raj, established the Raj and Indra Nooyi Endowed Distinguished Chair in Bioengineering at UTA. Raj Nooyi, a recipient of the 2017 UTA Distinguished Alumni Award, graduated from the University in 1978 with a master’s degree in industrial engineering.
Nooyi is now a member of the board of Amazon, where she chairs the audit committee. She also sits on the supervisory board of Philips and is a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee. In addition, she is a member of the International Advisory Council of Temasek, an independent director of the International Cricket Council, and a trustee at the National Gallery of Art. She is also an adviser to several early-stage companies.
The recipient of 15 honorary degrees, Nooyi was awarded the Padma Bhushan—India’s third-highest civilian honor—in 2007. That same year, she was named an “Outstanding American by Choice” by the U.S. State Department. In 2019, her portrait was inducted into the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and in 2021 she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Nooyi earned her master’s degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Management; a master’s of business administration degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and her bachelor’s of science degree from Madras Christian College.