Chennai-Born Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi Joins Amazon’s Board

India-born Indra Nooyi on Monday (February 25 ) joined the Amazon’s board of directors, after her 12 years of stint leading the food and beverage company, PepsiCo, as a chief executive officer. Amazon while revealing its SEC filing said Nooyi will serve on the board’s audit committee.

A 62-year-old Nooyi is the second high-profile addition to Amazon’s 11-member board this month, after brining former Starbucks COO Rosalind Brewer to its board.

Nooyi, who hails from Chennai, India, joined PepsiCo in 1996 and served as its CEO from October 2006 to October 2018. During her tenure at the company, Nooyi in her capacity served various leadership roles — board of directors, became its president and also served as chief financial Officer.

Under her leadership role, PepsiCo had acquired the orange juice company Tropicana, and also lead oatmeal maker Quaker Oats merger. She was responsible for PepsiCo’s worldwide strategic planning function, including developing and coordinating business plans for its operating divisions.

Indra Nooyi graduated from Madras Christian College in India with a degree in Chemistry, Physics and Math and earned a Master’s Degree in Finance and Marketing from IIM Calcutta, and a Master’s Degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University’s School of Organisation and Management.

The corporate world lost a prominent woman leader when Indra Nooyi stepped down as CEO of PepsiCo in October last year, whose revenue crossed $63 Bn in the same year. According to Bloomberg’s analysis of data compiled by researcher Catalyst, the departure of Nooyi as PepsiCo dropped the number of women CEOs in the S&P 500 to 23, globally.

“Being a CEO requires strong legs and I feel like I ran two legs of a relay race,” Nooyi said while stepping down from PepsiCo.

Nooyi is also an independent director of International Cricket Council, and also serves as Member of Board of Trustees of World Economic Forum, to name a few.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos-led Amazon had crossed a market cap of over $1 Tn as of September last year.