Former Pepsi Co. chief executive officer, Indra Nooyi in her recent interview with the New York Times Magazine this week revealed that she never asked for a raise during her service to the US company and once turned it down during a financial crisis. According to Nooyi, asking for raise is cringeworthy, and further, she cannot imagine working for somebody and saying that her pay is not enough. “I’ve never, ever, ever asked for a raise,” she said. “I find it cringeworthy. I cannot imagine working for somebody and saying my pay is not enough,” she added.
For the record, only 31 women-run companies are in the S&P 500. This number was even less in 2018, when Nooyi stepped down from her post. In her final year as the Pepsi CEO, Nooyi did not rank any close to the top for executive pay at the US public companies. In the year 2018, Bloomberg’s ranking of executive compensation announced Oracle Corp’s Safra Catz as the highest-paid female CEO. Cartz was ranked 33rd on the list.
“I never asked my board to give me more money,” Nooyi said in the New York Times interview. “In fact, one year the board gave me a raise and I said, ‘I don’t want it.’ They said, ‘Why not?’ It was right after a financial crisis, and I said, ‘I don’t want the raise.'”
During her conversation, Nooyi revealed that her family has lived in the same house for over 30 years. She said that though they didn’t move into a bigger house, they did buy the properties next door so that nobody would build a gigantic mansion. “But we grew up without much money, and that philosophy has never left us. I believe we are blessed with money, so let’s give it away,” she said.
The 65-year-old former PepsiCo CEO, who held her position for 12 years before stepping down, recently published her memoir, My Life in Full.The book largely talks about her efforts to try to address the issue of how, in recent years, jobs have become more competitivedue to issues of economic and gender inequality, while the ecological impact and the corporate response to divisive politics have become the hot-button.
Nooyi, who is currently on the board at Amazon, during her time at Pepsi, had pushed the food-and-beverage giant to reorient toward a version of sustainability.
