Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, addressed the University Philosophical Society (the Phil) this afternoon. From the second row of the packed GMB chamber, I witnessed Nooyi give a speech entitled “Tilting the World Toward Progress”.
The theme of the talk was notably optimistic, touching on the impressive progress made against global poverty and violence. But Nooyi stressed that “the solutions to yesterday’s problems are creating problems that your generation will be called on to solve.” Specifically, she discussed the ways free markets have led to a 74 per cent growth in labour productivity matched by just nine per cent wage growth.
Nooyi spent a large portion of her speech highlighting the “unequal access to opportunity for women and men”. While she called her own presence in the room “a testament to the progress we’ve made”, she bluntly emphasised the necessity of childcare reform (“one of the biggest challenges facing developed societies”). She described how her own career benefitted from marrying someone who fully supported her decisions and split the work of childcare.
Nooyi also displayed impressive local knowledge of Dublin and Irish culture. She referenced the digital revolution taking place “from Silicon Valley to the Silicon Docks”, as well as the upcoming general election. She also told stories of her education at the Holy Angels convent in Madras, India, where nuns from Dublin taught her “marching songs” that she later learned were Irish drinking songs.
The final major theme of the event was corporate social responsibility, which Nooyi stressed as a crucial part of continuing progress in the 21st century. She defended PepsiCo’s record of creating “water positive” communities, in which the company works to bring more water into the environment than it removes. She describes the necessary approach as one of “changing how we make money, not changing what we spend it on.”
For anyone wondering, the goodie bags provided by PepsiCo were at least as impressive as advertised, containing everything from Pepsi Max to Naked coconut water to Quaker Oats. The point of this exercise, made apparent in one of Nooyi’s responses to a question from the floor, was to show the impressive diversity of PepsiCo’s product line-up, specifically in contrast to rivals Coca-Cola.
