People From Chennai

"CEOs need keep an open mind so they can adapt to a rapidly changing world and need to bring an abundant dose of emotional intelligence to the job."

"The whole perspectives in which companies are viewed needs to shift from short to the long-term, and as I would say, to a focus on shapes, not just numbers."

"I grew up in a Hindu household but went to a Roman Catholic school. I grew up with a mother who said, 'I'll arrange a marriage for you at 18,' but she also said that we could achieve anything we put our minds to and encourage us to dream of becoming prime minister or president."

"To lead in an ever-changing world, leaders must adapt and stay nimble."

"I'm very honest - brutally honest. I always look at things from their point of view as well as mine. And I know when to walk away."

"Just because you are CEO, don't think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization. I've never forgotten that."

"My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent."

"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."

"When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response."

"As a leader, I am tough on myself and I raise the standard for everybody; however, I am very caring because I want people to excel at what they are doing so that they can aspire to be me in the future."

"I pick up the details that drive the organization insane. But sweating the details is more important than anything else."

"Anything that's done to address unemployment in terms of massive stimulus spending is going to exacerbate deficits. And anything that's done to address deficits in the short-term is going to exacerbate unemployment."

"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."

"The one thing I have learned as a CEO is that leadership at various levels is vastly different. When I was leading a function or a business, there were certain demands and requirements to be a leader. As you move up the organization, the requirements for leading that organization don't grow vertically; they grow exponentially."

"We are in a bit of a policy box and it's going to require us being willing to give up one of the two, which is it's okay to take on more deficits but lets put in some massive spending. Alternatively to say, 'we're going to go through structural unemployment for a while because we want to address deficits."

"Our hope is that whosoever is in power, manages this country consistently for all the potential the country has."

"I have no comments on political situations. I speak as the CEO of a large multinational company. Countries like India should be successful for the long term because India needs growth."

"India needs to grow at 7 to 8 per cent to ensure full employment and we all will do our part to invest in India to make sure India achieves its growth potential."

"We are not guided by elections. We are guided by potential of India. We are not waiting for any election results to invest in India. We are investing in India for its economic story."

"Look, when you pull into the garage, leave the crown there. Don't walk in with it, because you are first a wife and a mother. And if the family needs milk, you go get the milk. That is your primary role in life. Everything else is what you acquired or what you got because I pray for four to five hours a day.' That is the only thing she tells me."

"Her mother’s advice quoted in"

"One such way was to do with her lifelong love of cricket. No one in this country (the US) followed the game, but they did follow baseball, another bat-and-ball sport. So she threw herself into baseball and into the local team, the New York Yankees, reading everything she could on the subject until she could comfortably talk about it."

"Nui is a different kind of CEO. He says her approach boils down to balancing the profit motive by making healthier snacks (in speech to the food industry, she pushed the group to tackle obesity), striving for a net zero impact on the environment and taking care of your workforce. She was one of the first executives to realize that the health and green movements were just not fads and she demanded true innovation."

"Indra can drive as deep and hard as anyone I have ever met, but she can do it with a sense of heart and fun."

"As someone who has always aspired to build a company committed to its people and to the world, I admire her determination to achieve sustainability at an established company like Pepsi Co. And I believe that all socially responsible companies could learn from Indra Nooyi’s style of leadership."

"I don’t think women can have it all. I just don’t think so. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all. My husband and I have been married for 34 years and we have two daughters. Every day you have to make a decision of whether you’re going to be a wife or a mother—in fact many times a day during the day you have to make those decisions. And you have to co-opt a lot of people to help you. We co-opted our families to help us. We plan our lives meticulously so we can be decent parents. But if you ask our daughters, I’m not sure they will say that I’ve been a good mom"

"When you have to have kids you have to build your career. Just when you’re rising to middle management, your kids need you because they’re teenagers—they need you for the teenage years. And that’s the time your husband becomes a teenager too, so he needs you… Your parents need you because they’re aging. So we’re screwed, we have no hope, we cannot have it all. So you know what? Coping mechanisms. Train people at work. Train your family"

"Have you done your homework"

"It’s seamless parenting"

"But if you don’t do that, if you don’t develop mechanisms with your secretary, with the extended office, with everyone around you, it cannot work"

"There are consequences to the juggling"

"Being a CEO of a company is three full-time jobs rolled into one. How can you do justice to all? You can’t. The person that hurts the most with this whole thing is your spouse"

"cannot have it all, and that the biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict with one another. Total and complete conflict"

"The higher you go, it’s either up or out. People are waiting to knock you off the ladder"

"Peak performance requires peak conditioning —we don’t tell professional athletes to work out four hours a week, why in the world would anyone think we could achieve great success in business with a four hour workweek? Be like Lionel Messi, do the work"

"Accept, and seek out, people telling truths to power"

"Being surrounded by people who challenge you isn’t easy, but it forces better decision-making. Being surrounded by yes men and women does not always make progress, if often gets the wrong job done"

"Reaching the top doesn’t mean having unchecked power — it means having full accountability. Leaders need dissenting voices to push them toward better solutions. I ask for feedback so my team feels comfortable telling me no, or an idea I have is bad, and when you open that door they storm right through :) And it’s all good"

"So I go out and get milk. And when I come back, I’m hopping mad. I say, I had great news for you. I’ve just been named President of PepsiCo. And all you want me to do is go out and get milk"

"She is enigmatic... because she is hard to get She only moves in a small circle of senior film people and she shuns the media. That's also because she is a tragic figure with failed relationships... none of which succeeded, so she has withdrawn into herself. The only place she is now noticed is award functions, which are also picked and chosen. But she still doesn't give any interviews."

"For a woman to be complete, she has to be a blend of Paro and Chandramukhi [the two women who love Devdas. I feel that I am that woman."

"I was called the ‘Ugly Duckling’ of Hindi films because of my dark complexion and South Indian features. I used to feel deeply hurt when people compared me with the leading heroines of the time and said I was no match for them. I was determined to make it big on sheer merit."

"My teaming up with Amitabh Bachchan in Do Anjan earned me fame as an intense actress. Then it was Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khubsoorat in 1978 that established me as an actress of repute."

"The real turning point in my life came when I performed my best in Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan. After reading the script, I felt I had Umrao in me — the character influenced me so much. I put my soul into each minute aspect of my performance. I was thrilled when I won the National Award for Best Actress for Umrao Jaan."

"My teaming with Amitabh taught me many practical aspects of life and the film world. He’s one of the most versatile actors of Indian cinema."

"After reading the script, I had a strange feeling that I had Umrao in me. And the film created history.… I gave a performance which is one of my personal favourites."

"It was my first chance to rub shoulders with the immensely talented Amitabh Bachchan and we went on to become a super hit pair"

"There was a special 'Rekha Diet' compiled by Chunky Pande's mother, Dr. Snehlata Pandey. Her looks and style are copied throughout India and she even has her book (on yoga and exercises) called 'Rekha's Mind and Body Temple' (1983). She has remained a mystery and what keeps her a legend is that how she has kept it intact so beautifully. She is a complete Jane Fonda."

"Rekha is a diva... In fact, the term diva (in India) was coined for Rekha. The way she has metamorphosed herself from what she was when she came into the industry is mind blowing... She has worked on her language, body, diction, everything and apart from that she's a fantastic actress."

"Rekha is nearest to the parallel of Swedish actress Greta Garbo... they both came from poor backgrounds and climbed great heights... As an artist she was first noticed in 'Ghar' and after that she was no more termed as only a voluptuous artist in Hindi cinema because then came films like 'Khubsoorat' and 'Umrao Jaan' that set her apart,""