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IIM celebrates Pepsi's 'right choice'
Published on Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 07:54, Updated on Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 20:24 in 
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Kolkata: Indra Nooyi's appointment as chief executive of PepsiCo has thrilled students of Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta.
Indra Nooyi graduated from IIM-C nearly 30 years ago when the institute had a tie-up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Professor Ranjan Das, who studied at the IIM-Ahmedabad around the same time, recalls that teachers - in those days - were trained in the US and companies discussed and studied in B-schools were mostly American.
But there weren't many who wanted to go to a B-school.
"There was no craze for MBA education in those days. I would say that people who went for MBA education in those days, were really frontrunners. They looked at the world quite differently. I would say they were really thinking ahead of times. And today when I see, after 30 years, the kind of people who are joining MBA education, it's clear that the people who thought about their career positively," Das says.
For students of IIM-C, Indra Nooyi is a role model and they believe there are many more leaders like her in the making in the institute.
"I think the floodgates are about to open. Just like the 90s saw a whole lot of technopreneurs rising, we are waiting for more presidents, CFOs, CEOs in old world economies, in old world companies just waiting to rise. More Indians, more IIM Calcuttans," a second-year student, Abhishek Saha, says.
Indra Nooyi had come to IIM Calcutta three years ago. In her address to the students she had acknowledged the contribution of the institute in making her a better people manager.
Students of this institute couldn't agree more. In 30 years, that's probably the only thing about this institute that hasn't changed.
KNOW NOOYI |
| Nooyi, who went to the United States from India to attend Yale School of Management, has been PepsiCo's president and chief financial officer since 2001. She will take her place in an elite group of 11 female CEOs running Fortune 500 companies. Patricia Woertz at agricultural processor Archer Daniels Midland Co. ranks first. ADM is ranked 56th in the Fortune 500, while PepsiCo, the world's second-largest soft-drink company after Coca-Cola Co, is ranked 61st."I am excited and humbled," Nooyi said on Monday. Nooyi said she felt fortunate to be taking over a time when PepsiCo was in such strong position, with solid growth across all its business units. She is expected by many on Wall Street to continue the company's record of strong, consistent growth. Indra's elder sister Chandrika Tandon founded Tandon Capital Associates, a consulting firm that has helped the American banking industry save about $700 million. Younger brother Krishnamurthy Tandon is a well-known investment banker in Wall Street. |
(With ibnlive.com inputs)
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