Former PepsiCo CEO to Deliver YSU Thomas Colloquium Lecture

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Indra Nooyi, former CEO and chairperson of PepsiCo, will present the Youngstown State University Thomas Colloquium Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at Stambaugh Auditorium, the university announced Monday.

Nooyi was responsible for growing PepsiCo’s revenues from $35 billion when she became CEO, to $63.5 billion in 2017. She oversaw a portfolio of global brands and diversified products enjoyed by consumers more than 1 billion times a day in more than 180 countries and territories around the world.

As PepsiCo’s director of global strategy for more than a decade, Nooyi led the company’s restructuring, including the divestiture of its restaurants into the successful YUM! Brands Inc.; the acquisition of Tropicana and merger with Quaker Oats; the merger with PepsiCo’s anchor bottlers; and the acquisition of Wimm-Bill-Dann, the largest international acquisition in PepsiCo’s history.

An advisor to several early-stage companies, Nooyi currently serves on the boards of Amazon, Philips, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Partnership for Public Service, and is an independent director of the International Cricket Council. She is a trustee at the National Gallery of Art, and is on the Dean’s Advisory Council at MIT’s School of Engineering.

Celebrated for her hallmark motto of “do well by doing good,” Nooyi was chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to do right by being responsive to the needs of the world through sustainable growth initiatives such as making more nutritious products, limiting the company’s environmental footprint and empowering people in the communities PepsiCo serves.

With appearances in Forbes’ “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women,” Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in The World,” Nooyi has been sought out for her business insights and messages on leadership, inclusivity and change.

Admission to the lecture is free, but tickets are required. Tickets are available, beginning Feb. 7, at the Stambaugh Auditorium box office or online HERE.

YSU, through an endowment established by Paul J. and Marguerite K. Thomas, began the annual Colloquium on Free Enterprise in 1981.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.