Quinnipiac University’s 2025 Impact Award Recipient

Press release

HAMDEN, Conn.– By constantly challenging herself to learn more and putting in the work, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi smashed global glass ceilings to reach the pinnacle of the corporate world.
On March 6, Nooyi sat down with Quinnipiac University President Judy Olian to discuss her life and work during the 3rd annual Eileen Peters Farley ’68 Endowed Speaker Series for Women in Business. At the event, Quinnipiac honored Nooyi with the M&T Bank Center for Women in Business 2025 Impact Award.

The annual speaker series on the Mount Carmel Campus celebrates the memory and legacy of Farley, an accomplished entrepreneur and a long-term president of the Southern California Quinnipiac University Alumni Chapter.
Tuvana Rua, co-director of the M&T Bank Center for Women and Business, introduced Farley’s daughter, Jessica Geis, an accomplished entrepreneur who spoke about Farley’s impactful life and work. Geis and her late father, Stephen Farley, established the endowment in 2018.
“It honors her legacy of impact and of self-belief — knowing that even if you don’t look like everybody else in the room, what’s going to limit you are the beliefs and the limitations you put on yourself,” Geis said. “We’re so fortunate to be able to have this opportunity in this series to bring in people like (Nooyi), who model what you can be if you believe in yourself, follow your instincts, and always invest in yourself.”
In 2015 and 2017, “Fortune” named Nooyi the world’s second-most powerful woman. Nooyi was CEO and chairman of PepsiCo from 2006-19 and president and CFO from 2000-06. She served on the PepsiCo Board of Directors from 2001-19. After leaving PepsiCo in 2019, she continues to make an impact on boards and advisory councils serving top national and global corporations and institutions.
Nooyi was PepsiCo’s fifth CEO. As an immigrant from an emerging market and a person of color, Nooyi remarked there wasn’t anyone like her in corporate America at the time.
“I didn’t realize that I was breaking so many barriers,” Nooyi said. “The only way to do it at that time was by being better than everybody else by a mile. Otherwise, it’s too risky to take somebody so risky and put them in the job.”
Olian asked Nooyi about leading acquisitions and divestments. At PepsiCo, Nooyi handled multi-billion-dollar and multi-million-dollar transactions such as acquiring Tropicana for $3.3 billion and Quaker Oats for over $13 million, and divesting of restaurant brands including Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
“You’ve made some major decisions in your roles there,” Olian said. “What are the general principles you’ve used surrounding when to bring something into the fold, and when to push it out because it would be better for PepsiCo?”
Nooyi said an acquisition’s deal-making courtship period may be exciting, but that’s only 5 percent of the whole process.
“It’s the post-merger integration that’s more important, and that’s hard work,” said Nooyi. “So never get carried away by the deal-making. Think about the post-merger integration, because if you can’t get two or three times the synergy that you thought you were getting, you didn’t do a good job.”
OIian highly recommended audience members delve into Nooyi’s top-selling business biography, “My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future.”
“You really get the essence of the person and the awesomeness of what Indra has accomplished throughout her life,” said Olian.