Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said the overnight campus job she worked while attending graduate school at Yale University helped shape her work ethic and earned her the respect of classmates, offering new insight into the experiences that laid the foundation for her corporate leadership, Fortune reports.
In an interview with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Nooyi reflected on arriving in the United States from India in 1978 to pursue a master’s degree in public and private management at Yale. To help pay for her education, she worked as a dormitory receptionist from midnight until 5 a.m. before attending classes each morning.
“We worked our tail off because to us, we didn’t come there for the social life—we came there to study and to work hard and to move ahead,” Nooyi said. “So the goal we had was very, very clear: study, work hard, get great grades, and somehow land a job. That’s all the objective was at that time.”
Nooyi said the demanding schedule ultimately changed how classmates viewed international students who balanced work and academics.
“When we got consulting jobs or investment banking jobs, people looked at us and said, ‘Hey, these are brainiacs,’” she said. “Respect just went up—purely because of the hard work and all the efforts we put in… People realized that this was a grueling experience for us, and they respected us for that.”
She also reflected on the opportunities she found after immigrating to the United States.
“I remember back in the old days, people would say they thought the streets might be paved with gold. Maybe they weren’t paved with gold, but they were paved with the possibility of ambition,” Nooyi said.
Source: Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi Says Overnight Campus Job Shaped Her Worth Ethic
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