Gallery owner Sundaram Tagore will also be recognized.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Indra Nooyi, the Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PepsiCo., will be honored this October with an award in New York.
The award, called the Special Impact Award, will be given by a US-based Non-Government Organization (NGO) called Children’s Hope India (CHI), a group of female professionals founded in 1992 to sponsor programs for underprivileged youth in India. These programs range from education to vocational and healthcare training, and reach about 20,000 such children in cities all around India, such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Jabalpur, and Kolkata, as well as several smaller villages.
Nooyi is originally from Chennai, where she attended Madras Christian College and received her bachelor’s degree in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. She then went on to the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta for her MBA. She then earned her master’s degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University. She has received honorary degrees from institutions like New York University, Duke University, and Penn State University. In 2007, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian honor, by the government of India.
She joined PepsiCo. in 1994 and became President and Chief Financial Officer in 2001. She assumed her current position in 2006. According to BusinessWeek, net profits in 2006, under Nooyi’s leadership, doubled to around $5.6 billion, with annual revenues up to almost 72%.
Nooyi is routinely ranked as one of the 100 most influential women in the world by Forbes Magazine; in 2007 and 2008, she was listed by The Wall Street Journal as one of their “50 Women to Watch,” and was included on TIME Magazine’s list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Fortune Magazine ranked her the most powerful businesswoman in the world in 2009 and 2010.
The award will be presented to Nooyi at a gala event in Manhattan, at the famed Pier Sixty. The list of invitees is reportedly over 500 people long, and includes names like Indian Consul General to the US Dnyaneshwar M. Mulay. The theme of this year’s event is “Viva Calcutta!,” and in that spirit, Sundaram Tagore – a descendant of the famed Rabindranath Tagore’s family – and the founder of the Sundaram Tagore gallery in Manhattan, will receive one of CHI’s “Spirit of Bengal” awards.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com