Brahmins At The Gate : Indian CEOs are the next big thing on global boards

T R E N D S
by
Vinod Mahanta & Vikas Kumar

HSBC’S INDIA CEO Naina Lal Kidwai is usually at her confident best, but on that spring afternoon last year she was understandably nervous. The convention hall at the hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, had more than 5,000 shareholders of Nestle attending the company’s Annual General Meeting. They were to elect three new board members for the Swiss FMCG major, and Kidwai was one of the candidates. The other two were European h e a v y w e i g h t s Steven George Hoch, founder and senior partner of Highmount Capital, a highly regarded investment banking firm, and the formidable Jean-René Fourtou, chairman of the supervisory board of Vivendi and member of the boards of CapGemini, Sanofi-Aventis and AXA. After a three-minute video clip on each candidate, the electronic voting began and then the nerve-wrecking wait for the results. Finally when the results were flashed, Kidwai had achieved another of the many firsts that dot her career — she was elected with highest number of votes, becoming the first woman head of an Indian company to grace a global board. “People voted for diversity: they voted for diversity of exposure and the diversity of different markets,” says Kidwai.

The same month, one of India’s biggest corporate leaders was going through a similar experience. On April 18, 2006, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata’s name was proposed for directorship on the board of Fiat Spa by the Agnelli family. Later, on 4th May, Tata was formally inducted into the Fiat board. He wasn’t the first Tata to do so — way back in ‘70s, JRD Tata sat on the global board of directors of Chase Manhattan Bank with an Agnelli family member, the then president of Fiat, Dr Giovanni Agnelli. More recently, Ratan Tata joined another global board, that of New York-headquartered Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminium producer. And soon after came news of Infosys chairman NR Narayana Murthy accepting an invitation to join the board of Anglo-Dutch foods major Unilever. HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh graces the board of Singapore telecom company Singtel, while ace lawyer Zia Mody is on the board of a HSBC subsidiary in Hong Kong.

And in what could be an indicator of times ahead, headhunters in Spencer Stuart, a leading global search firm, are on the lookout for three eminent Indian business leaders to fill board positions for global companies — a Fortune 100 financial services firm, a luxury company, and a media group. Sources in the search industry disclose that two European corporate giants are also on a lookout for Indian directors for their global boards. In fact such is the demand for Indian CEOs that HSBC’s Kidwai has had to decline invitations by two American companies for their boards. What explains this clamour for Indian board directors? Trust Narayana Murthy to hit the nail bang on the head: “It signifies two things — India matters, and Indians matter. India matters as a country and as a market, and Indians matter as competent people.” Deepak Parekh elaborates: “India is happening. The MNCs have tremendous interest in India and the Indian market. They are looking at the favourable demographics, increasing disposable incomes, our huge population, the 9% GDP growth, the stability in government, Indian companies going out, among a host of other reasons,” he says. And the Indian market is a hard nut to crack as any MNC will tell you, so any expertise from here is welcome. “As people recognise the challenge to penetrate this market, they are going to get many representatives (from here) on board,” says Paul C Reilly, chairman and CEO, Korn/Ferry International, the world’s largest executive search firm. Results from the Spencer Stuart Board Index 2006 give us yet another insight. It’s part of a much larger trend — 52% of the S&P 500 companies want directors with international experience. BUILDING THE BOARD ACCORDING TO THE survey, a small minority (6%) of directors currently at the top 200 of the S&P 500 companies are from outside the US. Companies now want to change this, with a board that reflects the increasingly global nature of business. The survey also notes that corporate boards have begun to think strategically about the backgrounds and expertise they need in their board rooms in order to keep pace with the changing demands of the marketplace. Companies are thinking in terms of “what is the mix of capabilities we need to bring to the board over the next one to three years that will best support our business success,” the survey states. Thomas J Neff, chairman, Spencer Stuart US, and one of world’s leading headhunters, says, “The crunch in high quality independent and diverse director talent also requires companies to look outside their borders. The experience of companies with Indian board members is positive as they get a different view of the world and access to a very high quality pool of Indian executives and entrepreneurs on their Board.” Industry watchers add that it’s just not mere tokenism — global companies are feeling an inherent need for diversity. “There is a push for diversity at board level, in terms of reach, culture and gender,” says Kidwai. And that’s where Indians fit in perfectly. In fact, Indians rank fifth at 6% of the total international directors on global boards, after the UK (28 %), Canada (21%), and Germany (10%). Indian management skills are also well known, and many Indian leaders have proved their worth in the global arena. And it’s one area where they have an edge over their Chinese counterparts. “You see more Indians than Chinese on global boards because it’s a cultural difference people see. In general, Indians are more open, adaptable, and straightforward while the Chinese culture is hierarchial and quieter,” says Reilly. One reason why global companies are more comfortable is that a few NRIs, mainly academics and senior executives, have blended in well with global boards, and have added value in their assignments. Among the academicians are Kellogg dean Dipak Jain (Hartmax Corp, John Deere, Northern Trust Corp, Peoples Energy), Michigan University’s CK Prahalad (NCR Corp and World Resources Institute), Tuck School’s Vijay Govindarajan (Mainstay Partners and Executive Development Associates) and Emory University’s Jagdish Sheth (Cryocell International and Adayana Inc). Indian executives in MNCs are hopping aboard this bandwagon too. The latest is Rajat Gupta, who joined the Goldman Sachs board in November.

Earlier, Vyomesh Joshi, the high-profile head of the printers business in Hewlett-Packard joined the Yahoo board. Indian CEOs admit it’s a great experience. “Unilever is the second largest FMCG company in the world, it’s Anglo-Dutch, and it operates in 100 countries. There are lot of lessons for us because we operate in 38 countries, we are also a multinational. So there will always be lessons in human resources management, innovation, corporate governance, finance and so on. In every area there are opportunities for me to learn,” says Murthy. HSBC’s Kidwai agrees: “The similarities between Nestle and HSBC are mind boggling. Some of the challenges are similar, so there’s a huge amount of learning that I have been able to apply to HSBC. The experience of seeing vision from the top is tremendous.” Observing strategy and governance in new cultural context can be informing and interesting for Indian CEOs. Even board functioning varies across countries. Says HDFC’s Parekh, “Meetings are much longer in Singapore and can go on for 4-5 hours, and they are much more structured. Topics like succession planning are very big on global boards.” There is another trend emerging, of having Indians on advisory boards to the corporate boards of directors. For example, Narayana Murthy is a member of the Asia-Pacific advisory board of British Telecommunications plc. Similarly, Ratan Tata is member, Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee to the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, and the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group and JP Morgan Chase. “In this arrangement, the company gets a window into the market, and the leaders don’t have to deal with Sarbanes-Oxley issues, time constraints don’t apply, and yet the work they do is strategic,” says Anjali Bansal, country manager, Spencer Stuart. Experts say it’s going to be a big trend going forward, and with a limited pool of CEOs with relevant exposure and stature, there could be talent crunch here as well. “The pool of Indian directors will be taken up soon,” says Jeffrey M Hauswirth of Spencer Stuart. Right now, Indian CEOs are happy representing their country abroad. “It always feels nice because at the end of the day unless India gets respect, Indians won’t get respect,” says Murthy.

POWERPUFF MOM

Sapient’s senior VP Amy Shah finds Wall Street, with its gruelling hours, a tough challenge for women
Ishani Duttagupta

THERE arn’t too many women VPs in the consulting world. And for Amy Shah, senior VP of Sapient in North America, this is one of the challenges that she faces professionally. “I have two young children and packed travel schedules around the world - leaving them behind - can be very tough. The consulting companies do not yet have too many women in senior leadership roles and hence are only starting to recognise special needs such as limiting travel for mothers with young children,” she feels. Of course, the fact that her husband too is part of Sapient’s leadership team and helps her to balance her professional and family roles, helps a lot. And as career manager for groups of 10-15 employees across Sapient, Ms Shah finds herself often dealing with similar HR issues which often don’t have much to do with compensation packages. “As mentor and role model, I find people coming to me with problems similar to the ones that I have faced at different stages in my career - of balancing family commitments with the job,” she says. Even at Wall Street - where Ms Shah had her previous stint with Dun & Bradstreet - after an MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business - she finds the trading floor largely maledominated and women having difficulties with gruelling work hours.

“While there are a large number of younger women working at Wall Street as analysts and junior traders, there are far less of them in senior positions. In fact, I find more women doing well on the retail side of financial services such as banks,” she says. Ms Shah, whose parents immigrated to the US in the 60s, was born and bred in the Mid-West America and feels that the second generation of Indian Americans are far more comfortable with their ethnic identity today, than before. “My parents’ generation were coming to terms with their American-ness, while my children will be far more comfortable as global citizens. I feel they would be comfortable living and working anywhere in the world,” she says. She herself chose to relocate to NYC because of its multicultural feel. “Starting up Sapient’s financial services business proved to be a great challenge too,” says Ms Shah who is currently responsible for Sapient’s business in New York and Chicago with a focus on the financial services sector. “Besides NYC, I’ve worked in the West Coast and Toronto. And now as part of Sapient’s strategic leadership team I feel that leadership is more about results rather than gender, race or geography. While we are three women on the top team, 30% of Sapient’s workforce globally are women,” says Ms Shah, who joined the consultancy firm way back in 1996. As for India, while her clients bring her here on work, she would love to travel more often on vacation with her family and teach her kids Gujarati.

Source:- The Economic Times ,Global Indian Takeover ..

Using the space this time to release my frustration

Some people think that they are free to say anything. True, we are a democratic country and we have freedom of speech. But, then the worst is that these people feel that they can give opinions on any one and anything, that too in public, making fun of others or criticizing others. While doing so they commit violence (“Ahimsa”). This is violence, as they are having fun at the cost of hurting others’ feelings. If the opposite person does not respond back in the same sense, he/she feels that the opposite person is incompetent and is worth contempt. But a sensible opposite may actually does not want to respond to his/her crude comments at times and come down to his/her mean levels. He/she may remain silent and tolerate his/her comments when actually he/she really feeling bad. Well feeling bad and being emotional is not at all a bad thing. But then the silent tolerater should in due course of time learn how to respond to his/her comments in his/her own silent ways. The rule here is don’t keep in your grievances for longer time in your mind and heart. Find a correct time as soon as possible and clarify the matters. “Happy u are “, “Nice is the world around u”.

Positive thinking is part of the brain

CO S M I C U P LI N K



• MUKUL SHARMA

BEN Shahar, a happiness guru at Harvard whose “positive psychology” classes are being flocked to in the hundreds these days, seems to have an unnecessarily negative take on the media. “Most of the media,” he says in a Times News Network interview earlier this week, “focuses on what goes wrong: it reports extensively on Enron or Martha Stewart, or some fraud. But it doesn’t focus on the billions of honest transactions that take place everyday. And over time we begin to think that the negative is the norm, and that the exception is the good. So our minds get trained to focus on what is going wrong.”

He was replying to the interviewer’s question which said she had read somewhere that evolution had geared the human brain with a tendency towards negative thinking and, if so, could we condition it to think positively?

Firstly, a responsible media does not focus only on what goes wrong, rather it focuses on what is not commonplace, unoriginal or flat. The reason is because that’s what “news” means — new information of any kind; new things — events, occurrences or tidings. Fortunately or unfortunately, such things are not self-judgemental and, therefore, can be either positive or negative in their scope. Before 1991, for instance, the media quite regularly highlighted India’s economic shortcomings, since that was a given reality in those days. Today with the bread and butter business boom taking off like a rocket, the media consistently underscores the optimistic picture. In fact the Sunday Times top story on the day of Mr Shahar’s lament was ‘200 m phones and growing’.

Secondly, and more to the point, the human brain is definitely not geared with a tendency towards negative thinking. If anything, in evolutionary terms it would at most be blindly neutral in its development, favouring perhaps only that which could be beneficial to the body. Even after the rise of societies and civilisation, along with the emergence of the higher mental faculties of emotion, reasoning, judgement and the like, the tendency of the mind has been to move consistently towards the more affirmative and upbeat aspects of its world. And ultimately, with the growth of religiosity and the emergence of a maturing moral dimension, it has differentiated between good and evil and, historically, overwhelmingly chosen the former. The very fact that Shahar’s course for creating more positivity in our lives is breaking so many popularity records, speaks volumes about this.

source:- The Economic Times, CO S M I C U P LI N K
• MUKUL SHARMA

cUT cOPY pASTE

How further will it go .....in short while u will see a new post...if i am successful in one paper I am working on at present.

Be enthusiastic, always ride the learning curve

WHAT WOULD a seasoned high-flying executive mom advise her 20-year-old daughter who is about to enter the workforce. Hema Ravichanderis special because she is not just a mom of a 20-year-old. She is also a seasoned HR consultant, with 22 years of experience who, at one point of time handled/shaped careers of thousands of young executives as Infosys HR head. At present, she is a consultant with the HR consultancy firm Mercer and also advises firms and CEOs on managing human capital. How should you handle your career in these heady, uncertain times? What are the golden rules? Here’s what Ravichander would advise her daughter. Read on: My Daughter, This is a special moment. You stand on the threshold of your career ready to set sail on a new and wonderful journey. An apt time for me to share with you some thoughts which I hope will provide you with a strong compass on the high seas of life. Looking back on my life, I believe one of the nicest things said to me is what my college principal once wrote in a book she gifted me — “Thank you, Hema, for your enthusiasm!” Enthusiasm, the first ingredient in the making of worthwhile outcomes, gives purpose and direction to any project. It is the ability to be positive, the desire to examine and assess the worth of the project in hand and once the worthiness has passed muster, to go ahead and get things done with a smile! Cultivate it. Remember, it is not just the situation, but your reaction towards it that will stand you in good stead. Be a student always. Too many of us stop studying the day we take up a job. It is so easy to get frozen on the learning curve. To stay relevant in this competitive world one should be au courant with the latest advances in one’s field. Else you will lose that important trait of career resilience critical to keep you ‘resumeable’ through life. So, when you take up a job, do keep aside time, whatever the pressures of the day, to read, assimilate and deploy new learning. Be performance-oriented . Fortune favours the persistent. Your hallowed educational institution provided you with the knowledge but it is your responsibility to develop the right skills and attitude. Focus on meeting deadlines, ensuring that any work you complete is of the highest quality. Too many careers waste away for lack of focus on execution excellence. A successful career takes nurturing!Instant results happen only in video games. Don’t ever lose heart if your hard work does not reap immediate dividends. Jumping jobs is not a silver bullet to rewards. Focus on the learning valueadd from your job, in these initial years. Get varied experiences, and gain depth where appropriate. Specifically, avoid falling into the easy trap of becoming a generalist without at least an area or two of specialisation in your chosen field. “No man is an island.” The circles of our lives constantly meet the circles of others. The influence we have on them and they on us dictate our lives. Choose your mentors with care and work with them diligently to get a true picture of yourself and to improve yourself as a person and a professional. To treat others the way we would want them to treat us, with fairness and compassion, is easier said than done. In one’s official capacity one would often have to take decisions which people may resent, generating anger. The Affiliation Motive, the need to be popular and be loved, is a universal human trait. Be true to yourself and work towards what is right, mindful that it should stand public scrutiny should the need arise. This is what will earn you trust and respect. Give back to society. Choose an area you are passionate about and give it your time and mindshare. It is our responsibility. And what’s more, it will complete you as an individual. Choose your life partner wisely. One who will support you in your career choices and will look at both your careers as an integrated one. Many a promising career derails without this synergy. Above all, develop a sense of humour. Many a battle is won if you look at things through the lens of laughter. Remember, life is an easel waiting for you to paint on. Go strongly into the sunrise, my child.

Source of this article is The Economic Times dated 05/02/07

Information Inundation

This is the age of Information Inundation. If you are searching for one particular thing on google then you might get carried away by other information and get diverted from your actual search. Hence try to filter out which is useless. It requires quite a good amount of discretion to disallow yourself, rather reffrain yourself from viewing the junk information. Time is money and you have one life to live. Utilize those in judicious manner and add value to yourself and grow everyday. Try to spend your time qualitatively. Focus yourseld to the objectives and scrap the unrequired.