The premise

In the world of business, Indra Nooyi is widely regarded as an executive gold standard — a visionary trailblazer raised in the South of India who rose to sit at the helm of a Fortune 50 company for over a decade. When Indra’s Chief of Staff approached us in 2017, the year before she stepped down from PepsiCo, we were tasked with helping her build a social media presence that matched her global reach and influence. We’ve been partners to Indra ever since. Over the course of four years, we’ve guided Indra’s social media strategy and development through landmark sustainability initiatives, a highly visible CEO transition, and the launch of her New York Times best-selling memoir. Through it all, our goal has remained consistent: connect more people to the power of Indra’s platform and inspire change in the process.

The work

After building Indra’s channels from scratch, our first task was to work with PepsiCo’s speechwriters to develop a pithy tone of voice suited for digital distribution and message pillars that supported the company’s core business objectives. Following the CEO transition in 2018, we refreshed her playbook, broadening her content themes beyond PepsiCo’s platform and establishing new visual brand guidelines that drew inspiration from the colors and patterns that appeared in her iconic wardrobe of neck scarves. In 2021, we helped Indra launch her new memoir, My Life in Full — tapping into a following of +1.5M that we built together across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads. Today, we’re leveraging Indra’s channels to action on a content strategy that elevates the central message in Indra’s story — that improving company and community support for young family builders will unleash the economy’s full potential.

The results

• From 2017 to 2018, Indra went from an inactive presence on social media to one with a steady posting cadence that was driving high engagement rates and growing her following. During this period, Indra’s following grew 530% year-over-year.

• From 2018 to 2019, we expanded Indra’s presence to two new platforms and surpassed 1M followers on LinkedIn. Across channels, her following grew 114% year-over-year.

• In 2019, Indra was named to LinkedIn’s Top Voices list of U.S. Influencers.

• Since Indra’s memoir, My Life in Full, was announced in March of 2021, she has acquired 128K new followers, 30K of which were gained during publication week alone in September.

• In collaboration with a global publishing, press, and events team, our efforts helped propel My Life in Full onto The New York Times bestseller list and Amazon’s Editors’ Picks just one week after publication.

• Today, we’ve helped Indra build an online community of over 1.5M, representing a 1,570% increase from the start of our partnership.