Indra Nooyi, the former Pepsi CEO who helped bring Infosys to Hartford, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a great leader – even after he led military expeditions into the Ukraine.
The news broke in a recent New York Post article, where a former colleague described how Nooyi gushed about Putin in 2014, just months after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region. She made the statements at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland of 16 top US, Western European, Russian and Ukrainian business leaders, arranged by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum.
While leaders were discussing how the world should respond to Russia’s aggression, Nooyi declared to colleagues – including some from the Ukraine – that Putin was an “extraordinary leader.”
“I was shocked, disgusted and surprised,” the colleague said.
CT Techworkers reached out to Nooyi’s PR team to see if she is still a Putin devotee, even after his latest foray into Ukraine. His forces have been accused of war crimes, including the deaths of at least 540 innocent civilians, a hospital bombing as well as the use of cluster bombs and thermobaric weapons.
Nooyi has been praised as a groundbreaking CEO when she served at PepsiCo, earning millions leading the global beverage giant. Her globalist approach to hiring and sourcing materials earned her a spot on the Board of Trustees at the World Economic Forum, alongside Klaus Schwab.
Her tenure, however, was scarred by her practice of replacing American workers with foreign Visa workers.
Nooyi has a long history with Governor Ned Lamont. They were classmates at Yale and are neighbors in an exclusive neighborhood in Greenwich. She helped arrange the meeting between Governor Ned Lamont and Infosys CEO Ravi Kumar, which led to the creation of the Infosys Hartford office – as well the $18 million in grants the state Department of Economic and Community Development offered the company.
In 2019, Lamont tapped Nooyi to lead the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, a public-private partnership whose mission is to promote economic development.
Governor Lamont is fighting off an investigation into one of his wife’s companies, who received millions in no-bid Covid-testing contracts. Annie Lamont is a frequent attendee of World Economic Forum meetings and is a thought leader in the world of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing.