PepsiCo Inc. said today that its Chief Executive Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi will take on the additional title of Chairman of the Board this May. Nooyi has been at PepsiCo since 1994 and became CEO in October 2006. (Chicago Tribune) She will be the company’s fifth Chairman. “The four people before me have left phenomenal legacies and I have got to make sure that I can fit into their shoes.” Chennai-born Nooyi was named the most powerful woman in business last year by Fortune magazine and the fourth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.
Associate Editor of Forbes, Chana Schoenberger says that Nooyi’s election is a good sign for women. “A lot of companies are now having a chairman and then a separate person as the CEO, and then a third person might run the board as the presiding director. So, the fact that Pepsi’s board wanted to give her both of these jobs means that they are very confident in her leadership.” (IBNLive.com)
More: “I have legacies to live up to: Nooyi” (CNN-IBN video)
PepsiCo news release
this is awesome. but is she really taking the title “chairwoman”? asking because i read somewhere that women executives don’t change the gender of their title if it is genderized.
Thanks for bringing this up chai. Some papers are referring to a “title of chairwoman” but PepsiCo’s news release gives the title as Chairman of the Board so I corrected the post.