"Never, Ever, Ever Asked For A Raise," Says Former Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi
NDTV
Since Indra Nooyi's tenure at Pepsi, CEO pay packages have only grown and last year only five of the country's 100 top-paid executives were women.
Former Pepsi Co. Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi, one of few women of color to ever run a large public U.S. company, said she's never asked for a raise and once turned one down during the financial crisis.
"I've never, ever, ever asked for a raise," Nooyi said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine this week. "I find it cringeworthy. I cannot imagine working for somebody and saying my pay is not enough."
Only 31 women run companies in the S&P 500, and that number was even smaller when Nooyi stepped down in 2018. The ones who do tend to make less. In her final year on the job, Nooyi didn't rank close to the top for executive pay at public companies in the U.S. - most women didn't. That year, Oracle Corp.'s Safra Catz was the highest-paid female CEO on Bloomberg's ranking of executive compensation, coming in at 33rd on the list.
"I never asked my board to give me more money," Nooyi said in the New York Times interview. "In fact, one year the board gave me a raise and I said, 'I don't want it.' They said, 'Why not?' It was right after a financial crisis, and I said, 'I don't want the raise.'"
