Welcome to the Monthly Newsletter by Amer Kaissi 

Edition #26, January 2022

The book for this first edition of 2022 is a special one: “My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future” by Indra Nooyi, the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. This autobiography is packed with leadership lessons and insights. Nooyi retraces her steps as a leader, starting from her childhood in Madras, India, all the way to the top office in one of the largest and most iconic companies in the US. She talks about being the only woman in numerous executive and board rooms; about transforming PepsiCo to offer healthier snack and drink options and to become more environmentally responsible; and about her guilt for not spending more time with her family.

Nooyi is truly a humbitious leader that set very high expectations for herself and her team, but always remembered to listen to their input and show appreciation to their efforts. One of the most extraordinary practices that she had was to regularly write thank-you letters to the parents of her senior executives to thank them for the gift of their child to PepsiCo!

Her views on work-life alignment should be a model to be followed by all organizations: “I believe that we must address the work and family conundrum by focusing on our infrastructure around “care” with an energy and ingenuity like never before. We should consider this a moonshot, starting with ensuring that every worker has access to paid leave, flexibility, and predictability to help them handle the ebb and flow of work and family life, and then moving fast to develop the most innovative and comprehensive childcare and eldercare solutions that our greatest minds can devise.”

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Dr. Amer Kaissi is a Top Leadership Keynote Speaker. He speaks about leadership, teams and culture.