Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

This is a thread to discuss the many executives who run some of the biggest companies in the US and globally.

This week I am finishing up the leadership class in my MBA coursework. In this course I researched Indra Nooyi, who recently retired from running PepsiCo as CEO for over a decade. I always thought Indra was an interesting person, but researching her leadership style at such an in-depth level has been very enlightening.



Nooyi is very assertive. She is obsessed with design and influenced by Steve Jobs. And she transformed the culture at PepsiCo to one of performance with purpose, where the customer experience is obsession, and corporate social responsibility is fully integrated into every aspect of how the company operates. Nooyi is fascinating, charismatic, and perhaps the model for the 21st century CEO.

To learn more about her, I suggest checking out her .

There are some great articles about her in , , and elsewhere.

Finally, her is a great watch, and there are many other good videos of her leadership talks on Youtube.

Thank you so much Douglass for the wonderful add and I am delighted that you are finishing up your class successfully.

Douglass, I am just now getting a chance to see your post about Indra Nooyi. Thanks for the info. She sounds very interesting so I will have to read more about her. I might look at her biography as well:

by Annapoorna (no photo)

Eileen wrote: "Douglass, I am just now getting a chance to see your post about Indra Nooyi. Thanks for the info. She sounds very interesting so I will have to read more about her. I might look at her biography as..."

She is amazing. There are many Youtube videos of talks and interviews with her that I used for research for my MBA research. The biography does not have stellar reviews, but it also does not have many reviews. I might check it out at some point, but my reading queue is massive right now!

by Annapoorna (no photo)

The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

by Robert Iger (no photo)

Synopsis:

A grand vision defined: The CEO of The Walt Disney Company shares the ideas and values he has used to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world, and inspire the people who bring the magic to life.

In 2005, Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was more intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's history. "I knew there was nothing to be gained from arguing over the past," Iger writes. "The only thing that mattered was the future, and I believed I had a clear idea of the direction Disney needed to go." It came down to three clear ideas: 1) Create the highest quality content Disney could produce. 2) Embrace and adopt technology instead of fighting it. And 3) Think bigger--think global--and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.

Twelve years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and Iger is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our time.

Now, he's sharing the lessons he's learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees--taking big risks in the face of historic disruption; learning to inspire the people who work for you; leading with fairness and communicating principles clearly. This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger for forty-five years, since the day he started as a studio supervisor at ABC. It's also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the evolving Star Wars myth.

"Over the past fourteen years, I think I've learned so much about what real leadership is," Iger writes. "But I couldn't have articulated all of this until I lived it. You can't fake it--and that's one of the key lessons in this book."

Great add Douglass

Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!

by Nicholas Carlson

Synopsis:

When Yahoo hired star Google executive Mayer to be its CEO in 2012 employees rejoiced. They put posters on the walls throughout Yahoo's California headquarters. On them there was Mayer's face and one word: HOPE. But one year later, Mayer sat in front of those same employees in a huge cafeteria on Yahoo's campus and took the beating of her life. Her hair wet and her tone defensive, Mayer read and answered a series of employee-posed questions challenging the basic elements of her plan. There was anger in the room and, behind it, a question: Was Mayer actually going to be able to do this thing?

MARISSA MAYER AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE YAHOO! is the inside story of how Yahoo got into such awful shape in the first place, Marissa Mayer's controversial rise at Google, and her desperate fight to save an Internet icon.

In August 2011 hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb took a long look at Yahoo and decided to go to war with its management and board of directors. Loeb then bought a 5% stake and began a shareholder activist campaign that would cost the jobs of three CEOs before he finally settled on Google's golden girl Mayer to unlock the value lurking in the company. As Mayer began to remake Yahoo from a content company to a tech company, an internal civil war erupted.

In author Nicholas Carlson's capable hands, this riveting book captures Mayer's rise and Yahoo's missteps as a dramatic illustration of what it takes to grab the brass ring in Silicon Valley. And it reveals whether it is possible for a big lumbering tech company to stay relevant in today's rapidly changing business landscape.

Interesting book!