‘A leader’s role is to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present’

Looking back, I see how my life is full of this kind of duality—competing forces that have pushed and pulled me from one chapter to another.

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As a business leader, I have always tried to anticipate and respond to the shifting culture.

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I think the fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo.

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Educating girls remains the bedrock of advancing women in our world, although poverty, violence and ancient male-dominated cultures still stand in the way.

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Mine is not an immigrant story of hardship—of fighting my way to America to escape poverty, persecution, or war. I don’t know what it feels like to be a refugee, homeless because my own country is in a crisis.

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Still, I do feel connected to everyone who streams into America, whatever the circumstances, determined to work hard and to set in motion a more prosperous life for themselves and their families.

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I believe that women’s choice to work outside the home is integral to their well-being and their family’s prosperity.

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In fact, working women’s kids tend to do better in school, are more independent, and see their mothers as valuable role models.

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I learnt more in my six years at BCG than I could have anywhere else as a young MBA. I found it exhilarating, full of debate and fascinating people.

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The consulting business really suited me. I loved zooming in, digging deep into a business, learning growth and profit levers, then zooming out to determine how best to reposition a business or a company. Every project felt very personal.

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As a leader, I could be very blunt in my drive to make sure we made all the right decisions.

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Multigenerational living, so natural in Asian households and many other cultures around the world, can be a tremendous advantage to working families.

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In some cultures where multigenerational living is common, it can be particularly hard on women who are caught in the middle as mothers, daughters or daughters in law.

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I wonder why I am wired this way where my inner compass always tells me to keep pushing on with my job responsibilities, whatever the circumstances.

I sometimes wished I were wired differently.

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In senior management positions in most companies, staying in place or a lateral move may indicate to the organization that you aren’t promotable and very often, may be fungible.

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Health and wellness, to me, was undeniably a category that offered a huge opportunity. I’d seen this coming on the home front. I found it more than curious that a couple of children at (my daughter) Tara’s birthday party one year asked if they could phone their mothers to get permission to sip Pepsi we served.

That sent up a real red flag for me.

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Our days are still 24 hours and we must use them wisely.

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I learnt a lot from Roger Enrico (former CEO PepsiCo). He was intuitive and courageous. He took to very few people—his standards were ‘interesting” to say the lest—but he took to me.

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Steve Reinemund stepping into Roger’s shoes as CEO, was a completely different character—serious, upright, religious guy who wore shiny wing tipped shoes and starched white shirts monogrammed with his initials on the cuffs.

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I loved my job and felt it was a privilege to be sitting in that office. I felt I owed PepsiCo my hard work. Money was not my driver, and my salary was impressive, I thought given where I’d started at BCG. I didn’t compare myself with the men around me, some of whom I later learned had been getting special stock options for years.

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We know that on the whole, women’s median salary in the Us is about 80% that of men. In my world, pay disparity was expressed in smaller increments, a woman would get 95% of the base pay of a man doing the same work.

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My work at PepsiCo was essentially endless. I never went to bed at night thinking “what should I do tomorrow?”, I was always catching up, answering questions, moving forward.

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I think leaders need to understand the details behind what they are approving before they affix their signature to anything.

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Don’t be a pass through (leader). I think the people who worked for me came to appreciate that I read everything they sent me, both as a mark of respect to them and their work and because it was my responsibility.

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Female leaders have this much tougher than male leaders because the world of power is designed for men. Women are always breaking ground as they navigate the upper reaches of business, government or finance.

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We (women leaders) have to demonstrate our gravitas in a world where authority and brilliance, to many people, still look like an older gentleman.

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As a CEO, I was a dreamer and a doer, and I could paint a vivid picture of the future for PepsiCo and lead people to deliver on that vision. In retrospect, I understand why the board selected me as CEO.

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In my first weeks as CEO, I had to put my team in place. This was a tricky business. I wanted to surround myself with strong leaders to make sure I always had honest feedback.

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In my dreams, I created a new era for PepsiCo, I imagined a defining corporation of the twenty-first century, one that would carry far into the future, proud of its American roots, yet global and nimble enough to reflect changing times.

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The more I thought about PepsiCo’s future, the more I felt it was incumbent on me to connect what was good for our business with what was good for the world.

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Huge change has no shortcuts. It requires honesty, agility and courage. Once I committed to transforming PepsiCo, I felt my education and experience merging to serve that mission. I was ready for it. I knew what to do.

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Being a CEO opens doors in the most dazzling ways, but no one is doing it because they are nice people. It’s about what you can do for them.

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At some point in my CEO career, I also learned about the power of looking the part. For a long time I paid little attention to my wardrobe.

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A young freelance consultant named Gordon Stewart asked permission to speak to me privately. Gordon told me I needed a sartorial makeover.

He made me try a new wardrobe of skirts and dresses at Saks Fifth Avenue. His courage and attention to detail left an indelible mark.

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There is no single reason why more women don’t lead big companies. There is no list of ten items that simply need fixing. There are hundreds of issues—some tiny and difficult to pinpoint and some huge and structural—that add up to make it so.

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Leaders must model the behaviours themselves. There can be no tacit acceptance of stereotypically biased behaviour and in my view it needs to be called out when it happens.

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