Indra Nooyi has joined Amazon’s board of directors.
Indra Nooyi has joined Amazon’s board of directors. She would be a member of the audit committee. Amazon came under heavy pressure from shareholders, employees and the Congressional Black Caucus to adopt a shareholder proposal to increase diversity on its board of directors. As a result, the company announced in May last year that it would adopt a ‘Rooney Rule’ to increase the diversity of its board. The rule encourages the practice of inducting members from minority communities and qualified women into company boards.
“We’re thrilled to have elected two new members to our Board of Directors this month. Welcome, Roz Brewer and Indra Nooyi,”Amazon said in its announcement.
She is the second woman of colour to be added on Amazon’s board of Directors.
Nooyi, who hails from Chennai, India, joined PepsiCo in 1996 and served as its CEO from October 2006 to October 2018.
She was responsible for PepsiCo’s worldwide strategic planning function, including developing and coordinating business plans for its operating divisions.
Nooyi is also an independent director of International Cricket Council, and also serves as Member of Board of Trustees of World Economic Forum, to name a few.
She has also served as a director of Schlumberger Limited since April 2015.
Indian women have broken age old stereotypes and are rocking the entrepreneurial scene.
Indian women have broken age-old stereotypes and are rocking the entrepreneurial scene. With a home, children and a million responsibilities to fulfil, they’ve still managed to emerge as superstars and do very well for themselves. Their relentless zeal, quench for success and hard work is what sets them apart in the male-dominated business industry.
Here’s a list of 7 women who have done extraordinarily well for themselves:
1. Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi is the CFO and chairperson of Pepsico which is the second largest food and beverage chain in India. She is a powerhouse and used her entrepreneurial skills extraordinarily well to help the company reach great heights. She was also awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan award for her achievements, contributions and for being an inspiration in the corporate world.
2. Vandana Luthra
We are all aware of the brand VLCC which has spread its wings to 11 different countries across Asia, Africa and GCC. VLCC was started by Vandana Luthra who hails from Kolkata and is a beauty expert but got herself well versed with nutrition, beauty and fitness before starting her own venture. She received the Padma Shri in 2013 for her contributions to the field of beauty. In 2015, she featured as the 33rd most powerful woman in business in India by Fortune India.
Puja Bansal is a certified diamond grader and launched herself under Khandelwal Jewellers Ltd which is a popular jewellery brand. For her own online venture namely myheera.com, Puja has constantly been innovating new designs. She also specialises in manufacturing, retailing and designing. She believes that competition is required to excel and aspires to make her online portal the best in the world in the b2b gems segment.
4. Nina Lekhi
Nina Lekhi is another powerful woman who started her venture, Baggit, with some minimal investment from her mother. Today, her brand has over 44 stores across the nation and she along with her team launches an array of new designs each month for people who are fashion conscious. In 2015, Nina received the Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2015 by Rajiv Pratap Rudy and also featured in the Fortune India’s Most Powerful Women list.
5. Arpita Ganesh
Often referred to as “the Indian bra lady” of the country, Ganesh was the first woman to start a high-end lingerie brand with a variety of styles and fits called Buttercups. Started in 2008, her venture provided fitting sessions to over 3000 women all over the country. In 2016, the brand received massive funding from Kanwaljit Singh. The success of Buttercups was possible only because of this woman’s passion and hard work.
Richa Singh co-founded YourDOST along with two other people, Puneet Manuja and Prakhar Verma. YourDOST aspires to provide mental well-being to people who are going through any kind of mental or emotional stress and respects their anonymity. They aspire to help people discuss and share issues and counsel the issues. With over 60k users, the website has 70 specialists. Recently, YourDOST raised around $400K in an angel round of funding from angel investors.
7. Shradha Sharma
Shradha Sharma has an impressive CV but she is best known for her entrepreneurial venture Youstory.com. This website is popular with everyone who is well-versed with or wants to enter the start-up ecosystem of the country. She has also launched sister platforms such as HerStory, SocialStory, YS TV, YS Research and YS Pages and caters to over 50 million readers.
The list of women entrepreneurs below consists of savvy individuals who have faced several challenges and they will inspire you to some excitement.
Gender segregation has been continuously imposed in the world and it is hard to argue the fact that so are their respective works. There has been a stereotype view of gender segregation by considering man as the one looking after the house in monetary ways by going out working for bread and butter. On the other hand, a woman is supposed to be at home looking after how to make something useful out of the bread and butter.
But gone are those days, breaking the above view of woman’s profile, there are several successful women scripting their own success story. They are working hard enough to run from rags to riches and are truly influential and inspiring. These women snatched the opportunity to grow and made the best of it. And considering the numbers, between 2016 and 2017, the women-owned firms increased by 45%.
Over the past nine years, the number of women-owned firms is growing five times faster than the national average. The entrepreneurs are making important economic contributions to areas including hair salon owners, high-tech visionaries and everything in between.
The founder of The Huffington Post, one of the largest digital media outlets in the U.S. She is a woman with strong views in life and an extremely successful entrepreneur. Later her site was acquired by AOL Inc. in 2011 at a value of $315 million, she still holds a strong position in its operation.
2. Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo
Indra Nooyi, born in Chennai, is the most well-known face amongst Indian women entrepreneurs, held several senior positions before joining PepsiCo. In 1994 she joined PepsiCo and was named the president and CFO in 2001. For her business achievements, she has been conferred with prestigious Padma Bhushan and inspired India’s corporate leadership. Within the last couple of years, she has helped her business accumulate 30 billion dollars worth of crucial deals.
Shradha Sharma, from Patna, is the Founder and Chief Editor of YourStory, a website dedicated to entrepreneurs and startups. Her past experience was with Times of India and CNBC TV18 and was selected among the 500 LinkedIn influencers. Her struggle to stand up high is fruitful and has been an inspiration for other women.
4. Suchi Mukherjee, LimeRoad
LimeRoad, an e-commerce and lifestyle and accessories website was founded by Suchi Mukherjee in 2012. She has an idea of this when she was on maternity leave. The base was set as she worked in companies like Skype and Gumtree. Limeroad is conquering the world’s lifestyle products at a huge percentage by being discoverable by an approach thus making a mark in the social e-commerce span in India.
SheEO is a global community of women to transform how they finance, support and celebrate female investors. Vicki Saunders is an American businesswoman, founder of SheEO. She has been named one of the 100 most influential leaders of 2015 from Empowering A Billion Women. She is a leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world.
6. Vandana Luthra, VLCC
VLCC has its presence in 11 countries across Asia, Africa and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). Vandana Luthra, born in Kolkata, West Bengal, initially, a homemaker started her journey in 1989 when the first of her two daughters was only 3 years-old. She had a good knowledge of beauty, skin care, fitness, food, and nutrition and was awarded the Padma Shri in 2013 and in 2015, by Fortune India, she was listed as the 33rd most powerful woman in business in India.
Debbie Fields is the founder of the Mrs. Fields’ cookies, Debbie managed to break the image of a stereotype housewife. Though she had a sad story in the initial days without any sales, so she decided to give the cookies out for free. Later she started with her achievements and made a fortune with her baked goods.
8. Amanda Signorelli, Techweek
Amanda Signorelli, CEO of Techweek, which a multi-day conference held in multiple cities. The top goals of Amanda are diversity and tech week is weeklong celebration technology and entrepreneurship and a platform that brings tech startups.
Shahnaz Husain, known as the “Queen of Herbal Beauty Care” held a strong interest in beauty and cosmetic which made her discover Shahnaz Herbals Inc. The company has a collection of skin care products ‘without animal testing’. She was bestowed with Padma Shri award by the Government of India in 2006 and ‘World’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur’ award by 1996 Success Magazine.
These women and much more have been a massive wave and they have shown the world that with determination and willingness to succeed, nothing is impossible. So, follow your dreams and you will do the best!
