#Shepreneurs: Women Entrepreneurs have Found a Common Favourite! Guess Who? When asked to share their role models among women, a name that was picked up by most of the women entrepreneurs is…
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When you think about women in business, a very few names come in the mind on the first click. But the one that has topped the list is Indira Nooyi. When women entrepreneurs were asked to name their women role models, a name that topped the list was that of Nooyi's. Nooyi, who last year ended her 12-year stint at PepsiCo., is a favourite among shepreneurs.
What Makes Her a Favourite?
It is correct to say that India looks up to Indira Nooyi in the truest sense of women empowerment. Coming from a humble background to becoming a force to reckon with, entrepreneurs share with us what makes Nooyi so popular.
Kanika Gupta Shori, Co-founder and COO of Square Yards, shares that Nooyi, being a woman from a conservative and middle-class family, has managed to beat all the odds and that makes her Shori's favourite. "Definitely, she came a long way to become one of the most influential women in the world."
Being intelligent and an impeccable leader is a given when it comes to Indira Nooyi, however, the years of hard-work and work-family balance that she has done is even more important yet difficult to comprehend. "Her hardworking nature is so inspiring. She is an example that women can do and achieve anything," shares Srishti Baweja, Director of E2E Networks.
"Can do anything" is an important phrase to remember and embed in the minds of the section of society who are deemed inferior and the "other" just because they are manifestly different- biologically and physiologically- in the face of humanity.
However, a difference only a demarcation for separating types and not a judgement of deeming one thing inferior and other things superior.
Excelling Everywhere
Ghazal Alagh, Co-founder of MamaEarth, explains that Nooyi is her role model because she has excelled both in her personal and professional life. Winning in one aspect of life while keeping the other aspect under the carpet doesn't truly define excellence or brilliance in a person.
Nooyi has shared on several occasions of how she was accepted at the Yale School of Management for a second master's degree at the age of 22 but there was a huge discrepancy in her situation because her mother was keen on getting married. In India, brainstorming about one's daughter's marriage is a well-known norm.
However, determined the person Nooyi was, she made it to the top B-schools and married Raj Nooyi at the age of 25. She has two daughters.
Apart from Nooyi, Michelle Obama and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw are other names that made it the category of favourites among women entrepreneurs who share how Obama and Shaw have broken the glass ceiling and how big an inspiration they are to the millennials.
