CEOs when they were MBA students

I was going through No Debt MBA's entries yesterday, and found a link to this interesting article.

Fortune 100 CEOs: When They Were MBA Students

And just like No Debt MBA, I found inspiration in Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi:

Nooyi recalled how she was virtually broke in her first year as an MBA student. “Those were very tough times.,” she said.  “At the end of the month, if I saved $5. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was totally and complete broke. I had no money to buy clothes. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I worked the front desk of Hadley Hall from midnight to 5 a.m. at $3.35 an hour, the minimum wage. That money was the grocery money for the week.”

I read a case on Indra Nooyi last quarter, and her story is a definite must-read. She chose the night shift because it paid an extra 50 cents an hour. She didn't have the money to buy a well-made suit so she bought one from a discount store, and wore orange snow boots to an interview (and got rejected). A professor advised her to wear a sari for the next interview (BCG), saying, "if they can't accept you in a sari, it's their loss, not yours." She got the job.

One quote of hers that strikes me: "I am so secure in myself, I don't have to be American to play in the corporate life."

(Reference: International management: managing across borders and cultures. H. Deresky. 8th ed.)