- The Wednesday Play by Jenny Stojkovic
- Posts
- Indra Nooyi: The Rock Star Who Became the First Immigrant CEO of a Fortune 50 Company
Indra Nooyi: The Rock Star Who Became the First Immigrant CEO of a Fortune 50 Company
She played guitar in an all-girl rock band in India. Then she moved to the U.S. with just $500 and rose to run one of the most powerful corporations in the world.
Jenny Stojkovic
June 11, 2025
Before she became one of the most respected executives in modern history, Indra Nooyi was a cricket-playing teenager in Chennai who fronted an all-girls rock band called The LogRhythms. Today, she is known as the former CEO of PepsiCo and the first immigrant, first woman of color, and first South Asian to lead a Fortune 50 company.
Her story is not one of luck. It is one of bold choices, strategic thinking, and radical empathy in a world that rarely rewards women who sound or look different.
From Chennai to New Haven
Indra Nooyi was born in 1955 into a conservative, middle-class family in Chennai, India. Her father worked at a bank, and her mother, who never completed school, ran the household with strict expectations and creative challenges. Each evening, her mother made Indra and her sister engage in mock debates, often asking them to pretend they were Prime Minister making tough national decisions.