Indra Nooyi

I had to make sure that all the people working for me knew that they were working for me, the new CEO, not just carryovers from the old CEO.

Typically what happens when you have carryovers is that people wonder if you can trust them.

Not that there's any bad feelings between you and the old CEO, but you want your own team.

The general counsel is one of the most important jobs.

And even though I worked very closely with Larry and I adored him, I didn't ever want him to think that he was always going to be viewed as a carryover from Steve.

even though Steve and I were best friends great colleagues I respected Steve enormously so I had to make sure Larry realized that I'm going to respect him even more if he was now my hire so I walked in and said Larry you're fired but I did it with a smile and he just looked at me and said what do you mean boss I said okay you're now hired as my general counsel he burst out laughing and I mean my first years at PepsiCo my early years as CEO was successful because of Larry what a general counsel

The outgoing CEO is never in the deliberations.

You provide your perspective and then you leave the room.

The board picks the next CEO because remember the outgoing CEO doesn't have to deal with the new CEO, right?

And so that's what happened when Steve was stepping down and that's what happened when I was stepping down.

I told the board what I thought the company needed going forward.

I gave them the dossiers of four or five people and said, these are all the pros and cons of each candidate based on what the company needs.

And this is how these people have evolved over time, the trajectory of their development over the last five or seven years.

But it's your decision.

You need to deliberate.

You need to interview each of these people.

You need to do your assessments.

Because at the end of the day, I'm gone.

You have to make sure the company stays successful based on the choices you make.

And so the board deliberately met each candidate one-on-one and got to know them and spent almost two years deciding who should be CEO.