"I have never, ever, ever asked for a raise," said Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of beverage giant PepsiCo, in an interview with The New York Times.
On being questioned if there was anything related with gender to her decision, she replied, "I find it very cringeworthy. I cannot imagine working for somebody and saying my pay is not enough."
The interview stated that Nooyi's compensation in the year 2017 - her last full year as the CEO of PepsiCo - was a little more than $31 million.
Nooyi's statement, many people on Twitter pointed out, was 'privileged', 'out-of-touch', and especially detrimental to women who are engaged in paid work.
'Cringeworthy, Shocking': People Call Out Nooyi's Statement
Gender pay-gap is not anecdotal, it has long translated itself into hard-figures. A 2019 Oxfam report 'Mind the Gap-State of Employment in India' noted that women on an average are paid 34 percent less than similarly qualified male workers for performing the same tasks.
A 2019 Harvard Research 'Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but are Less Likely to Get them' mentioned that women who asked received a raise for 15 percent of the time, while men received it 20 percent of the time.
An enraged Twitter made note of the pay gap – with women pointing that most of them got paid less than men.
As an influential business leader, Nooyi's statement, people on Twitter said, significantly impacts those women, people of colour, who are already placed at a disadvantageous position.
People added that in order to aggravate gender-pay disparity, one needs to demand a raise, and asked for responsibility and introspection from a corporate leader like of her stature.
Since her term at Pepsi, the packages of CEO have perpetually grown and last year, only 5 out of the country's 100 highest paid executives were women, reported the Economic Times.
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