Indra Nooyi holds the floor at the Bold Steps Empowering Women conference.
Indra Nooyi, one of the world’s most powerful businesswomen has a stark message for New Zealand business: Get a plan.
Invited to New Zealand by Air New Zealand to stimulate action by the country’s top CEOs and Chairs into how this declining country can unite to stimulate growth, Nooyi came armed with a research report from BCG.
The research was supplemented with focus groups of young Kiwis either working or studying in US universities.
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It suggested New Zealand could be divided into three groups: A complacent and well-off older group of New Zealanders who believed New Zealand was a good place to be and did not want anything turned upside down. They were happy with their share of the pie.
Another younger group of New Zealanders who did want to grow the pie but were concerned older New Zealanders were not interested, so they were more likely to leave to build their futures elsewhere.
Then a third, not so well off group, many Māori and Pasifika, who were less concerned about the size of the pie than needing a larger slice just to get by.
As Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran later observed, “if you don’t actually work out how to grow that pie you are not creating an environment of growth and oxygen and what happens is that you will lose your talent because they want to go somewhere where there is growth and oxygen.”
Warned Nooyi: “If you don’t invest and grow, it’s gradual and then suddenly you fall off the wagon.”
Nooyi doesn’t do anything by halves
Nooyi is rated as one of the world’s top CEOs for her leadership of global behemoth PepsiCo for 12 years. The first woman of colour and first immigrant to head a Fortune 50 company. She is renowned as a strategist — her masterclass sessions are a must. These days she serves as a director on Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, Philips and the International Cricket Council.
In this phenomenally busy life how did she make time to come down to Auckland and share some insights with New Zealand’s foremost business leaders on how to Accelerate New Zealand?
The answer is Foran.
Nooyi is a personal friend and business colleague of the Air New Zealand CEO, who formerly led Walmart’s US$300 billion a year United States business before leaving in 2019 to head a small airline down under.
Some people tend to discount Foran’s influence within New Zealand — ignoring that he retains a stellar business reputation in the United States and a first-class Rolodex, and is a passionate Kiwi with a personal commitment to using his networks to help this country succeed.
The Nooyi delegation
Nooyi brought with her some well-connected business pals: Matt McCooe, a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and CEO of Connecticut Innovations; Seema Hingorani, a diversity disruptor who is founder and chair of Girls Who Invest and managing director at Morgan Stanley Investment Management; Fred Hochberg, a businessman and civic trailblazer and his life partner, educator and arts activist Tom Healy.
Over three days they took part a private soiree with nearly 100 of New Zealand’s leading CEOs and Chairs where they laid out the results of that confronting research on New Zealand and challenged them to “get a plan”; took part in the United States Business Summit, and followed that by participating in the Bold Steps Empowering Women conference, where New Zealand women pay more than $1000 a head to be inspired and learn to succeed.
Some of those at the Air New Zealand event had met Nooyi before when she was star speaker at a CEO mission the airline took to New York in October 2022.
Her message then, “It is time to get your swagger back,” resonated.
Get a plan
What Nooyi’s group came up with was a recommendation for a multi-year economic strategy that could survive political wind-shifts.
Perhaps easier said than done in New Zealand’s current environment where much of the Coalition Government’s First 100 days action plan is focused on axing its predecessor’s policies and projects.
The group had taken that into account.
They recommended, as an example, the steps business activists took in Connecticut where they formed a 10-point economic action plan. Then “went on the warpath”, convincing the Governor and the State Government to implement it.
Isn’t this one for Christopher Luxon?
This should be right up the Prime Minister’s alley;
Luxon is a keen student of what makes other nations succeed — particularly small nations. He has earlier joined New Zealand Initiative study tours to Switzerland and Denmark. Luxon has also been to Ireland and Singapore to take some lessons from their success into how to accelerate growth.
He pulled out of the business dinner with Nooyi this week — the workload of getting his new Government in place was just too intense.
But while he was not in the room, the Prime Minister should take account of who was. Air New Zealand’s guests included: Fonterra chairman Peter McBride and CEO Miles Hurrell, Mainfreight CEO Don Braid, Auckland airport CEO Carrie Hurihanganui, Auckland University Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater, NZME and Stuff bosses Michael Boggs and Sinead Boucher, Climate Change Commissioner Rod Carr, who furiously took notes throughout the addresses, and BusinessNZ CEO Kirk Hope who is pulling together a green paper on New Zealand’s future. In total, close to 100 CEOs, Chairs and Directors of our most powerful companies.
Every intelligent person knows the country needs a fix.
Someone should send him the Nooyi report. Could make inspiring Christmas reading.
· Disclosure: Fran O’Sullivan co-hosted the United States Business Summit in partnership with Simon Bridges from the Auckland Business Chamber. She was a guest of Air New Zealand on the CEO mission flown direct from Auckland to New York in October 2022 to explore business connections.
After around 20 years of intensive development, the 109ha business park is now finished.