Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of PepsiCo who was one of the highest-ranking women in the business world, spends her days studying up on AI. She sits on the boards of Amazon, Honeywell, and Philips, and she views that continuing study as a responsibility.
“Many board directors don’t like to be re-educated. But if they don’t re-educate themselves, how do they know if the company is doing right by shareholders?” she told me recently.
Nooyi is taking everything she’s learning and putting it into another part-time role as an instructor for MasterClass Executive, a program that MasterClass launched with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and OpenAI. She’s teaching “leadership in the world of AI transformation.” Even though she’s not as close to the forefront of AI as active executives, she’s steered companies through transformations before.
“Everybody has to go back to being a student,” she argues. “It’s not that you can just say it doesn’t affect me.”
Nooyi’s board seats have given her her own continuing education. At Amazon, she’s observed how the tech giant is applying AI to AWS, to video, to entertainment, music, games, and devices—plus AI watchdog teams looking for how the technology can mislead. At Philips, she’s seeing the impact of AI on imaging and medicine. At Honeywell, she’s watching industrial automation. “I’m like a kid in a candy store,” she says. “I’m learning so much.”
