The former PepsiCo CEO joins Fortune’s MPW Next Gen Summit.

Indra Nooyi says real talent development takes 10-15 years

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Indra Nooyi says real talent development takes 10-15 years


I've heard you say before, during the last six years or so at Pepsi you produce something like nine Ceos, you know, a number of feet Cfos head of each ours. What was what was your secret to tell us development there? How did you do that? Yeah. Um that's true those numbers when we went back and reflected on it, they said my goodness, I wish we could have retained all of them in Mexico because we already have a lot of depth in the company. But if these people had stayed, the company will be flying even more. Um I think talent development is not an easy job at all. It requires deep commitment. It requires uh you know, watching every step, you know, over many, many years. I think we started Right when I became ceo in 2006 to start developing a pipeline of people that we thought could all be Ceos of Mexico. And my goal was US board should have four or five people to pick from. Not just one person that they had to, you know, de facto appointed ceo. So real talent development and mentorship that takes about 10 or 15 years to build a pipeline to get the people and put them in the right assignments, move them around, test them in various places, mentor them and that's what we did very, very deliberately including figuring out can they be moved overseas or should we give them international experience through assignment? Ology. So we did a very, very careful development plan for each person and then we track them through these entire period and expose them to the board. So when time came for succession, the board actually had way too many candidates to pick from, which was a real luxury. But the downside is those that don't get picked, get picked off and so that's what happened. Um and I think I, you know, recommitted to whole talent development, but I'll be honest with you, Pepsico is always a talent academy. We always recruited the best and that Pepsi sauce makes people want to perform incredibly well at Mexico.