Q: What are some big takeaways from your childhood in Chennai that you shared with your sister Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of PepsiCo. How did your Indian heritage contribute towards making you what you are today?
A: I was the oldest child and the first daughter; I had a lot of pressure on me about what was allowed and what was not. When you’re from a very simple, middle class Indian family; the honour of the family is measured by what you do or don’t do and I was a miss goody two shoes who didn’t break any rules. I was meant to be married very early and I think my mother probably didn’t even think of me going to college. For me, it was a big fight going to college [Madras Christian College] to study BCom; and the same thing happened again when I went to business school at IIM Ahmedabad. A good point that I took away from my Indian heritage was that I was surrounded by music everywhere. I don’t remember what chores I did but I remember what songs I sang. The other thing is my solid and frugal middle class values. I grew up with very little and I can live with very little even now. For me, success is not about the bank account or impressing others.
Q: What are some ways in which your sister and you have influenced and inspired each other?
A: We came to the US separately – she came to college here for her MBA; I didn’t have a college runway; I came straight into the business world with a job at McKinsey. We have had very different careers that didn’t intersect. She’s had a busy life and I have had a busy life. Very often, we were both travelling and we aren’t the kind of family that gets together every weekend. I am very proud of her I think its extraordinary what she has accomplished. I assume she’s proud of me too.
Q: How did you balance your career as a successful business leader with your career as a Grammy-nominated singer?
A: Music was always very important to me so what I would do is balance it with business. When I was little, I sang a lot and I was good at it. When I went into the business world, I still loved singing and through my travels all over the world, I enjoyed many musical experiences. The advantage of being a very successful business person is that I could buy the best tickets. When there was a great artist performing in New York, I would get the tickets for the best seats for two or three nights in a row. Then around early 2000, I had what I would call a crisis of spirit when I felt I was working too hard and on a path intensively driven towards only business and more business. That’s when I started to think about intentional living; till that moment, the question of balance did not arise and my work was number one. I had some time for my family but no time for myself; it was an unbalanced life. There was no other dimension of me that I had explored. Fortunately I had this crisis of really thinking about it and to take a pause so I could have a more intentional life as opposed to an accidental life. I’m happiest when I’m connected to music and this is how my journey back into music started.
Q: What is the philosophy behind your music and how would you describe your musical genre?
A: At the time my journey back to music began, I didn’t do any Hindustani music. I had heard Pandit Jasraj once and felt in love with his way of singing where bhakti and sur came together in this most extraordinary way. I wanted to learn from him or someone else; but the great gurus don’t want you at the age I was at. Besides I wasn’t prepared to dedicate my life to music; I still had my company and my family. I started spending hours learning ragas; I had a good ear; it was a gift the divine had given me. What I did for my first album Om Nama Shivaya was a gift for my father-in-law when he was turning 90. I started using ragas as chants which have healing powers known to us down the ages from the sages. The second album Om Namo Narayanaya, which was Grammy-nominated, happened because the divine wanted me to make it. I got up at 3 a.m. with these ragas bursting out of my head. The latest album, Ammu’s Treasures, started with my grandchildren. Ammu is term of happiness and purity and that’s what my grandchildren call me. I don’t think of music for music’s sake; I think of music as having a much higher purpose of getting to the deepest part of ourselves.
Q: During your high profile career at McKinsey, did you face any glass ceiling as a woman of colour?
A: I had a tough start and didn’t have the runway that most people have. Most people come to the US through university education or through marriage (particularly women). I don’t know one other person in my peer group who came straight to a job. I looked different and I didn’t know how to dress and 46 years ago, India wasn’t this emerging powerhouse. I was straight in the boardrooms and everything I did sounded odd. I spoke much faster and I didn’t know how to dress. It was a big journey for me, I was still calculating in Indian rupees. People were trying to find a common ground with me but they couldn’t talk to me about baseball or Thanksgiving or about college. The only thing they could talk about was India and India was the place most people hadn’t been to or they didn’t know much about. But I never had ever walked into any meeting thinking I’m a woman or thinking I’m a woman of colour, I walked in thinking I’m the best professional that they could have got because I’ve done so much work on the topic. I’m studying your business as a partner or associate at McKinsey. I’ve spent a lot of time to justify the fact that I’m here and you may as well deal with it – I have always gone in with that. I care a lot about adding value and impact. I have had instances of a glass ceiling but I don’t deal with it thinking there’s something wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with me and I don’t even like the term woman of colour for myself. We are all women of different and gorgeous colours of the rainbow.
Q: Your husband and you are big donors towards education and your gift to the NYU Tandon School of Engineering is well known. Do you actively participate in operations and policy issues as chairman of the board at NYU Tandon? What is your vision for the university?
A: When I found that I wanted to give time to service in a very conscious way and not live in a selfish bubble; I reached out to NYU Stern School of Business School to see if I could teach. The dean made me executive in residence and my involvement got deeper and deeper. It started with three hours a week; that three hours turned into three days a week and then he invited me to join the board of the business school and later I was invited to join the board of trustees of the university. I am chair of president’s global council and very involved in multiple parts of NYU ever since I got on board 15 years back. As part of being a trustee, one of things I decided to do was educate myself on NYU. We are one of the largest global network universities and I visited all the global sites and spent time with all the schools. At that time, we didn’t have the engineering school as part of NYU; it was polytechnic and it was outside. As we brought the school inside; the executive committee was very interested in the potential of STEM education to transform lives. My engagement with the NYU engineering school started before we gave the money and I remain deeply involved as chair of the board. NYU Tandon School of Engineering has done amazingly well and is one of the greatest academic transformation stories in the US.
Q: Do you see influential Indian Americans such as yourself redefining the role of philanthropy among the Indian community in the US?
A: Philanthropy by the Indian diaspora here has moved in stages. The first thing that we all did was giving money back to temples. We didn’t forget our roots and we built temples here and back in our hometowns in India. The next stage was with a few organisations like American India Foundation and Pratham that started to build the joint philanthropy platform where Indians came together to give back. At the start, the numbers were not big but the notion of philanthropy became a little more fashionable and stories of what the organisations were doing in India became powerful. I have been on the board of AIF for many years and we loved supporting the work they were doing in India. The third phase is when we get more engaged in the US and look for opportunities to reshape what’s happening here. I am engaged with a few things in India but it’s much harder to get on a flight to India every week, especially as we grow older. And instead of just writing a cheque, I want to be part of the journey. We as a community need to do more and be much more generous here in the US.
Q: Your husband Ranjan Tandon and you are one of the best known Indian American power couples – please share some of the highlights of journey together?
A: America is very individualistic and we all pursue our passions here. My husband is very into his investing business and that’s what he likes to do. We’re older and fortunately we’re still healthy and alive to tell the tale. There have been joint decisions and big ideas such as setting up the chair at the engineering school. We have also set up chairs at Harvard and Yale universities and done many other big things together some of which are anonymous. Making gifts to institutions for us is about being involved and going beyond in the journey rather than just writing cheques and I do this much more than he does. He has got a different journey and that’s how we split the roles.