When I first came to the US, I was dirt poor. At Yale, I worked at the reception counter from midnight to five a.m. to make money. When you don't even have clothes for job interviews, all of a sudden life gives you a wake-up call and you realize you have got to work extremely hard to make it happen for you.

Indira Nooyi's meteoric rise and success has been charted by every newspaper and business journal in the world, but how many of us know the person behind the image? The Secret of Success: The Story of Indira Nooyi gives us a rare insight into Nooyi's life, her childhood, the choices she made, the struggles she faced and the lessons she learnt on her way to the top.

The accolades came later, and there were many. In 2007 she was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the president of India. In 2007 and 2008, Time magazine listed her among the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2008, Forbes named her the third-most powerful woman in business while Fortune ranked her the sixth most powerful woman in the world as well as listed her, along with Mother Teresa, Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton, among the 30 most inspiring women in the world.

How did Nooyi do it? What kept her going? How did she manage to sustain home and hearth through the challenges she faced while running the second-largest food and beverage business in the world?

Amazingly, she conveys through her life and her achievements that the highest of accomplishments is possible without sacrificing who and what you are. Though Nooyi became an American citizen in 1988, India, Indian values, her home and family in Chennai remain at the core of this corporate leader's heart. Hear about this and more in this intimate and revealing biography of one of the world's most unusual women.