Lots are written about how 'she shows up at board meetings in the saree.' My God, I have never worn a saree to board meetings; people play it out in different ways. I think I have never shied away from the fact that I am an Indian, and I don't intend to, but you can be at home with both cultures.

PepsiCo did not have a woman in the senior ranks, nor a foreign-born person who was willing to think differently

When I was president of the company, I said, 'Okay, I can do this - piece of cake.' Then when you are the CEO, the responsibilities multiply enormously because you worry about everything.

There is nothing like a concrete life plan to weigh you down. Because if you always have one eye on some future goal, you stop paying attention the the job at hand, miss opportunities that might arise, and stay fixedly on one path, even when a better, newer course might have opened up.

When I grew up there was no web, blogging or tweeting. In fact, where I grew up there was not even television! I met a lot of my friends in school and in college, and they are still my friends today.

The distance between number one and number two is always a constant. If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. That is a big lesson. I cannot just expect the organization to improve if I don't improve myself and lift the organization, because that distance is a constant.

Market growth alone doesn't give you enough tailwind. You have to create your own. The way to do that is by designing products for consumers that wow them.