‘CHALLENGE POOR COMPANY CULTURE OR LOSE WAR ON TALENT’
Indra Nooyi, the first Asian woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, warned that firms would lose the war on talent if they did not act immediately to stamp out racism and sexism…
Cby Barnie Choudhury HIEF executives must challenge bad behaviour which stops women and minorities from progressing, the former CEO and chair of global company PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, has said. Speaking at the GG2 Leadership Series on Tuesday (12), the first Asian woman to lead a Fortune 500 company warned that firms would lose the war on talent if they did not act immediately to stamp out racism and sexism.
‘If the tone at the top accepts bad behaviour, if your HR department does not intervene, when they see bad behaviour, then the company’s in trouble,’ Nooyi told the audience.
‘The CEO and the head of HR are also looking at it, and [it’s] not just delegated to a diversity officer.
‘If the mainstream leaders look at it and want to do something about it, it works, and company cultures will change.’
Diversity
Nooyi was in the UK to promote her autobiography, My Life In Full. The event was organised by the Asian Media Group (AMG), which publishes Eastern Eye and Garavi Gujarat news weeklies.
The book charts Nooyi’s life, from being born in Chennai a few years after Indian independence, to her climb to the top of the multi-billion-dollar American drinks and snacks empire.
During her tenure as CEO and chair, Nooyi put diversity, in all its forms, at the heart of everything she did, but paid tribute to her predecessor, Steven Reinemund for starting the journey.
‘What he did was the best thing because he said, you can’t create a diverse organisation and make people feel included unless you force numbers into the company.
‘So, he set up a scorecard which said, parity hiring, parity promotion, parity retention.
‘If you’re going to hire 10 people, five people are going to have to be diverse, go find them. He tied our bonuses to that scorecard.
‘Not that we liked it, I’ll be honest with you, because it was very, very hard to hire people. But he said, they’re out there, you just don’t look for them hard enough.
‘Once we got a critical mass of people, and we’re diverse, we could build inclusion programmes on top of that diversity, and he watched everybody like a hawk.
‘Steve did a brilliant job with that. I’ve got