CEO

Interviews

Escorts Group's Nikhil Nanda is a low-profile

leader with big dreams
He loves to duck. At 37, Nikhil Nanda, the joint managing director of the Rs 3,378-crore Escorts Group, is
a firm believer in the invisible hand. A co-promoter of the construction-to -agricultural equipment
conglomerate along with father Rajan Nanda, Nikhil lets his leadership team do the talking when it comes
to business. That's because nothing succeeds like empowerment. His low-profile demeanour
notwithstanding, Nanda Junior is married to Shweta, the daughter of superstar Amitabh Bachchan. His
mother, Ritu Nanda also hails from Bollywood's legendary Kapoor family, being the daughter of Raj
Kapoor. With sharp features and filmdom running in his veins, the Wharton School grad never even tried
to switch over to reel life. Reality is that the suave and soft-spoken Nikhil Nanda wants to prove a point in
business its possible to run a conglomerate with an ear to the ground. CD recently caught up with him
at the Escorts headquarters in Faridabad and quizzed him on his B-wood legacy and more. Excerpts:

Describe your job My job is to continue to build Escorts, an engineering company, by bringing in products to give solutions
to the end-consumer, be it in agriculture, be it in construction equipment machines, be it in auto
components. We want to innovatively engineer, produce products to make the lives of our consumers
easier.

Is your job a hand-me-down?

It is a journey. We have all handed responsibilities. Since my grandfather started this company, I see it as
a legacy that I'm a part of. My job is to really understand where India is, where consumption and the
market is, and how, as an entrepreneur, I can ensure that we are firing on all cylinders and delivering all
possible value across the organisation's chains from research and development to the actual delivery of
an experience.

What is your constant focus?

My job is to create an environment and a culture that brings out the best in individuals. To achieve that,
my focus is to create values within the organisation.

When do you start and finish work?

I have a 10-11 hour day. I'm in office between 8:30-9 am. But I'm always working and don't have to be
physically tied to my desk for it.

What would be your advice for business executives?

The most important factor to be successful in the business community is to have interpersonal skills. Of
course, you need to have the talent and the core competency from the knowledge point of view. But
interpersonal skills are very important if you want to lead any organisation.

More specifically, what would be your advice to them in a volatile world?

It is very important to be physically present in the marketplace; you should not view the world from your
desk. I also think we need to reduce the number of layers from the man who is representing your
company on the ground to the topmost bosses of the company without compromising on efficiency,
standard operating procedures or governance. In short, we need to be closer to the customer.

What do you expect from your CEOs?

My top leadership team has to ensure that the fabric of the organisation has the right processes and
systems are in place to create an environment with the right balance.

How do you achieve buy-in?

The day you can match the objectives of the company with the objectives of the individual, you have buyin.

What are you reading now?

I don't get time to read as much as I would like to. The last book I read was by John Collins called Good To
Great.

What has been your smartest business decision?

I wouldn't know what is smart (laughs). I'd like to feel good about life every day. I'm not looking for a
moment for myself, but for my company. We recently designed few products from scratch in our
construction and tractor business. In terms of technology, application, it is on par with any multinational
company. This makes me feel very proud.

Your biggest mistake in business?

Mistakes are inevitable since they help you shape up as a mature and balanced leader. So we make
mistakes in our day-to-day lives. I learn from my mistakes, though I can't recall a mistake that's hounding
me even now. I have a tendency to listen more than talk. So before I take a decision, I ensure that I'm
surrounded by people whom I respect in terms of their talent and experience. So decision-making, to that
extent, becomes easier. That consensus, perhaps, helps in reducing mistakes.

Who has been your biggest influence?

People around me. My executives, it can be my workmen, my customers, everybody around me. I learn
from them on a daily basis. But Steve Jobs has inspired me. I've never met him, but he shaped our world,
shrunk it and connected it. He's created a product that all age groups can use. I admire the man.

What has the construction business taught you?

The Indian mentality is to 'abuse' a machine. If you were to use a construction machine for 100 hours in
Europe, in India, it would be for 800 hours. So while the usage is more, we also put our machines through
very rugged environments in terms of dust, heat, application of the machine. So the functionality and
expectation from the machine in India is that much more. So all our machines, apart from being
technologically on par in terms of excellence, have to be very durable.

Where would you go from here?

We are very fortunate to be in the four verticals that we operate in agri-machinery, construction,
railway business and automotive components. They are flourishing and I see no need to diversify further.

How important is money to you?

Money is the means. Profit is important for every business but your aim cannot be the money alone. The
value that you need to provide should generate the means. Money and profit are the result of your effort
and strategy. Profit is a cost of staying in business.

Has your job put your personal life under duress?

I love what I do, though I can't spend the amount of time I would like to with my family. But my
philosophy is that in my life I would like to do something for India as an entrepreneur and give back
something to society through my company, which gives jobs to people and make a difference to the
common man. Just like the Tatas, the first thing that comes to mind is the word 'respect'. I want Escorts
to be in the same league where, through innovation, it earns respect the world over.

Like Tata Sons, do we see Escorts then being run by a trust?

Trusts, proprietorships or companies with shares are structures. That, inevitably, is an option any
entrepreneur can take. But professionalism is not an option anymore.

What is it like, being Amitabh Bachchan's son-in-law?

Apart from the fact that he's a superstar, I have a lot of respect for him. Even before I got married, I was
close to personalities from Bollywood like Raj Kapoor (mother Ritu Nanda is Raj Kapoor's daughter). It's
important to look beyond the superstar status and see what contributions they've made to the country. Raj
Kapoor helped India in many ways to connect with Russia, for instance. He broke boundaries and so

does my father-in-law, in terms of connecting with people from other countries. For me, the contribution
you make as an individual is very important.

Life is good when work becomes a pleasure,

says Coca Cola India's Atul Singh
Coke memorabilia jostles for shelf space with Turkish and Chinese herbal tea blends. A couple of cricket
bats lie on the floor, one autographed by Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir, and a picture of cricket
legend Sachin Tendulkar, autographed of course, is neatly displayed on a shelf. And as if there was
something missing, a red torch grabs attention from a corner of the creamy wall. That occupies prime
position in Coca-Cola India President and CEO Atul Singh's room at the company's Gurgaon
headquarters. After all, the 51-year-old ran with it the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch as part of the
flame's journey through New Delhi. An out-and-out sports buff, Singh grew up in Kolkata watching Pele
score for Cosmos and Gavaskar calling the shots.
Though he regrets not having made the grade as a professional sportsman, the Coca-Cola India head boy
is doing his bit to "open happiness", as the Coke tagline reads. Today he sees more value in being a coach
than a player, as he leads a team of a company that serves up 1.7 billion drinks across 206 countries
everyday.
A consultant by training and a traveller at heart, Singh opted out of Wall Street for a multinational career
in the FMCG business that would take him from Puerto Rico to China, across four continents. Today, as
Coke's India head, Singh lives by his 'play hard, work hard' credo.

Describe your job.

I've probably got the greatest job because I'm paid to have fun and do what I enjoy most. I have a great
team of people and we have a lot of fun in what we do as long as we do it in a responsible manner. We're
not about selling a product, we're about truly opening happiness.

What's your take on happiness?

I believe in playing very hard and working very hard. If I weren't happy doing what I'm doing, I'd stop
that. When I was starting out in my career, I worked for an accounting firm, Pricewaterhouse. But I didn't
like being an accountant. I was paid well working in New York City on Wall Street. But I wanted to do a lot
more, have an international career. So I moved on to something different, to Colgate-Palmolive, which is
an international company.

Are consultants good at running businesses?

I worked for 2-3 years in financial services. But over the last 23 years, I've been in FMCG. I learnt a lot at
Pricewaterhouse to be thorough, to pay attention to details, ask the right questions. It was a
tremendous learning experience. Even when I moved to Colgate, for the first oneand-a-half years, I was in
corporate audit where I travelled the world really seeing how international business was done. It took me
to Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Thailand, UK. All of that really helped me adapt from an
accounting orientation to hands-on operations.

Do you have any role models?

I'm not the kind of person who will read a book and say, 'I'm going to be like this'. For me, at different
phases in my life, I would look at how people become successful and then try to look at their values and
see if they fit in with my values.
Having said that, I've been always in awe of great sports stars. Growing up in Kolkata, I saw Pele play
against MohunBagan in Eden Gardens in the 70s. It was a very uplifting experience. In cricket, I've been a
big Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar fan. I've been a fan because of the values they exhibit on and off
the field. These are icons.

Any business mentors?

Warren Buffet. He's not only our largest shareholder but an icon. It's basically about creating value and
then deploying it to help hundreds of millions of people in need.

You seem to be a sportsman at heart

Absolutely. If I were born again, I would try harder at sports. I hit the tennis ball off and on. I love
watching sports.

So do you prefer being a coach or a player?

I've been a player and a captain and a hard-playing one at that. But now I'm at the stage where I've
become more of a coach. As you're diversify into different areas of the business, you realise that you can't
be an expert in everything. I'm more of a generalist. I'm a facilitator. I ensure that there is a balance
between the resources and the vision. To that extent, I'm a coach.

Is coaching fun?
I'm actually getting to that stage where coaching is a lot more fun than scoring the actual goals. When you
score a goal, it is one person scoring it but when you're coaching, you have 10 people score goals. So I
would rather have more people who could score goals than just me.

Typically, when do you start work and when do you finish each day?
I start at around 9 in the morning and finish about the same time in the evening. Also, a lot of the
socialising I do with bottlers, customers, associates is work-related. So 3-4 days a week, it goes
beyond 12 hours.

Hasn't your job made your personal life suffer?

No, I enjoy it. A lot of us at Coke don't see it as a job. This is what we do. Pele played football. Sachin
played cricket. We open happiness. And it doesn't take away from my personal life. If my son needs me for
a parent-teacher meeting, of course I will go. I just got back from the US yesterday after meeting my
family for a week. So family is my number one priority. But because it is part of a very well-balanced
ecosystem, you tend to enjoy it.

What is your guilty pleasure?

I enjoy travelling. I was very fortunate to work for companies that allowed me to do that.

What is the smartest business idea you've ever had?

What I do well is build a team that can sustainably execute a plan to deliver towards our mission.

What is the biggest mistake you've ever made in business?

Not making a decision on people fast enough to give them challenging roles

What is your method of damage control?

You always have to be open and transparent. If there is a crisis, you deal with it head-on and with all the
stakeholders who are impacted.

How important is money to you?

At a certain point, money is always important. Beyond that, it is not important at all. For me, right now,
money is not important. It is really important to enjoy what you do. The key driver really is to add value to
society around you.

How do you want to be remembered?

I'd like to be remembered as someone who added value. I want to be remembered as someone who built a
great team for Coca-Cola India so that there's a legacy. I want to be remembered as someone who was the
leader of the team that put Coca-Cola India on the map.

What is your advice to young leaders?

Keep it simple

Pepsico'sManu Anand on keeping emotions out

of decision making and more
There's no hype, no hoopla just a Spartan corner office with some teleconference equipment and a PC.
The windows stare out as a dull day unfolds. By no account does PepsiCo India Region Chairman Manu
Anand's fifth floor fiefdom in Gurgaon's DLF Park seem enviable. But Anand is not complaining. The
plainspeaking 53-year-old came back from a three-year stint in Thailand as PepsiCo's South East Asia
boss to take over the mantle from Sanjeev Chadha. Prior to that, he turned around the company's foods
business in India and was the key man behind the popular 'Kurkure' brand. But he's the last to take credit.
For in India, Anand seems to have his role cut out with a people-first policy. A student of physics from
Delhi's St Stephen's College, Anand went on to serve Ferguson's as a chartered accountant. In PepsiCo for
the last 17 years, he's grown beyond pouring into the P&L account. It's more about people, policies and
performance now.

Describe your job.

It's fun. It's a very exciting job with a lot of opportunities to be innovative, and more importantly, to lead a
bunch of fantastic people. It also allows me to be entrepreneurial: the part I enjoy the most.

Hands-on or hands-off?
Hands-on. In any business today, you've got to have your ear to the ground. You don't have to be doing
everything yourself. By hands-on I mean knowing the mood of the people, and most importantly, the
consumer and ensuring they're always in touch with our leader

What's the difference between leaders and managers?

Managers have more to do with the details and leaders provide the direction, vision, inputs, the right
resources and most importantly, the right coaching to get there.

What do you consider yourself a coach or a player?

There are times when you've got to be both. But in my position, it's more coach and less player. I'm not an
active player anymore but that doesn't stop me from playing once in a while.

Any role models?

Leadership is about situations. So role models are situational. In the rapidly-changing business scenario
or in life, things change so fast that I don't think one can say any single person handled everything
perfectly or was the ideal person for every situation.

Any business mentors?

Certainly; a lot of them within PepsiCo. The company spends a lot of time investing, coaching and
building leaders of the future. The ability to build business leaders has become as important as the ability
to build businesses and business results. My current boss, Saad Abdul-Latif (PepsiCo CEO Asia, Africa
and Middle East) is a phenomenal mentor and so is IndraNooyi (CEO, PepsiCo) in her own way, though
one doesn't get to meet her that frequently.

When do you start work and when do you finish?

You start and finish. It's 24/7 (laughs). I'm in office by 9 and I'm normally out by 7. But I don't consider
coming in to office as part of work. We're switched on 24/7.

Hasn't your work made your personal life suffer?

It's very difficult to draw a distinction between work and personal life after a point of time. Beyond a
stage, our work and family life tend to blend with each other. But when you do get an opportunity to

switch off, I tend to use family time to the fullest. It is the quality of family time that matters, rather than
the quantity.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Food. I've just come back after spending three years in Thailand and I just love Thai and South East Asian
food.

What is the smartest business idea you've ever had?

I think it was working with a team to build local food innovation products like Kurkure in 1998.

Your brainchild?
No, my child. I wouldn't be giving credit to a lot of people if I said it was my brainchild.

What is the biggest mistake you've made in business?

Mistakes come more out of omission not doing things rather than doing things. When you look back,
you can say our foods business could have grown much faster, could have gone national much earlier;
things like that. Or maybe, wrong investment decisions, wrong fit in hiring, etc. When I go back to my
days at Frito Lay's, I can say that there are certain products that didn't work out right. For instance, 'Chaat
Street' didn't give us the delivery we thought it would. Or, when we launched fabricated chips in India, it
didn't do well and we had to withdraw it.

So what learnings do you draw from such mistakes?

When you go back, you must check the radar of your decision-making, whether you made the right
decisions with the right data, did you ask the right consumer questions, did you think through the full
end-to-end business model those are the things that you have to reflect upon at the end of it all.

So does that make you more prepared for the future?

They do make you more robust. But does that mean you won't be taking any bad decisions in future?
Doubtful. The very nature of entrepreneurship and business is going out there and taking risks. You can't
play safe always.

How important is money to you?

Important, certainly, if you want to maintain a certain lifestyle and plan for your kids, etc. But to me,
there are certain aspects of my job like the people I work with, the kind of ethics and values we operate
within, that are as important, if not more.

What keeps you awake at night?

What I think of is whether I've done the right thing by building the right culture or value system. One
thing I always think about is whether I've communicated the right messages about leadership to our
people about our values, about our code of conduct, about our ethics. When you're more than 6,000
people-strong and have about 500-600 people joining every year, you've got to ensure everybody has the
right value system ingrained in them.

What is your solace in time of trouble?

Falling back on my values and belief system. And, of course, the family is always there in times of trouble.

What is your current state of mind?

I'm excited about the future of this company and building true scale in India. Being in the right country,
right business in the right time heralds very exciting times for us.

Why every project is a future Narayan for

Mccann Erickson's Prasoon Joshi?
Eating a lunch of idlis with green chutney from a home dabba, Prasoon Joshi songwriter, copywriter,
screenwriter, chairman of McCann Erikson India talks about creativity, inspiration and lost dreams:

Is everyone creative?
Creativity is inherent in all of us, but very few nurture it. A lot of it has to do with upbringing. If you were
always taught to think within the box, you may not be too creative as an adult. You want to see how
creative a person is, watch him interact with children. Creative people let their imaginations fly, they
invent stories, they sing in the company of children.

Can you go looking for inspiration or do you have to wait for it to find you?
Ideas choose us. It's not in my hands to go find the best ideas. I can only be a worthy medium, the wire
rather than the electricity. But that's not fatalistic. You can train yourself to be a good conductor of
electricity by being open, experimentative.

Do people like to work in teams?

You have to strike a balance between individual and team achievement. Everyone has their own dreams.
Who would understand it better than an advertising man? We don't sell products, we sell dreams.
Businessmen don't dream of selling products. They dream of seeing the name of their company on a huge
hoarding at Haji Ali. The collective vision is made up small individual dreams.

Can you wake up at noon and still be successful in the corporate world?
I'm a late to bed, early to rise person. I need only four hours of sleep and I'm very flexible about it. If I
have a presentation the next day, I work till 3 am. AR Rehman is a total night person, so when I work with
him, I fly into Chennai in the late evening and we work all night to put the music together. You can do this
but you have to have junoon in life. It's your decision how you want to live. Sleep is just one of the things
you sacrifice to your passion.

Can music save your mortal soul?

Music is suspension of logic. Music is therapeutic, it calms you, rejuvenates you. Music and poetry
together make for heaven. I have a parallel world, with a very different set of people who are poets and
musicians. I learn a lot from them. If I were to watch ads in my spare time, I would be a bad ad guy. You
have to be a student of life to succeed in advertising.

Why do youngsters dream of becoming actors, sportsmen, but never executives?

An executive career is not something a child would find attractive, though that may change as our society
evolves. When I was born, people didn't come around and say, 'badhaiho, hamare ghar copywriter paida
hua'. At that stage, you're a variable, surrounded by variables. For many of us, a career is like an arranged
marriage. We join a career and then we fall in love with it. I've met quite a few people who want to run the
business of films rather than be actors. But many also end up doing work they don't like. There are many
people I know who should not be in advertising. They're more from the management, rather than the
creative side. They are MBAs who now envy their batchmates for earning ten times as much as them. If
money is important to you, you'll be disappointed with a career in advertising.

Is the respect for age tradition dead?

Respect for age for its own sake is almost gone. What matters now is performance. There are people

whose performance dips with age because they've lost the dream and are now tired, cynical, introverted.
But they don't have the energy to get out and pursue something else. Its really tough. You can offer them
counselling, help them fall in love with their work all over again. If that doesn't work, divorce is the best
option, as it is in personal relationships. People ask me,
'Aap hamesha itna excited kaise rahete ho?' and I tell them that even if I wasn't in advertising or films, I
would still be writing every day. Writing is what excites me.

What's you leadership style?

I'm very informal. Power distance would never work for me. In our previous office, my office didn't even
have a door. I was accessible to everyone, but nobody misused the access. And I give immediate feedback,
at meetings, in front of everyone. I don't wait for appraisals.

What about the power distance of the Bollywood star system?

One star I've learnt a lot from is Amir. He's so completely focused on what he does. It doesn't matter if it's
an ad film or a feature film, he's equally intense. Tulsidas said, 'najaane kis bhes mein Narayan mil jaye'.
You need to treat every client, associate or employee with respect. Every project is a future Narayan.

Why Kalpana Morparia strives for the

impossible?
For someone whose standard introduction for years was 'KalpanaMorparia from ICICI', she surprised
many when she moved from ICICI Bank after thirty three long years. Around three years ago, Morparia
moved into the corner office of the Indian arm of financial services firm JPMorgan. And the journey,
which started when former boss KV Kamath turned her from a corporate lawyer to corporate leader, took
yet another turn. Morparia now leads all the various businesses and services of JP Morgan in India. The
tough boss (though she believes otherwise) who is a regular on all the woman power rankings, doesn't
believe in the glass ceiling, preferring to let her work talk for her. Though a workaholic, she is a movie
buff, who likes to read fiction (often on her iPad) and yes, she loves Shahrukh Khan.

What have been the most predominant influences in your life?

Working for ICICI and it's somewhat natural. After all, I spent more than half my life there. Outside work,
my biggest influence has been God; I'm a deeply religious person. My real-life idol has been my mother.
Widowed at an early age, she believed that women must be self-sufficient instead of getting married off
early. She taught us to be life-ready.

Which of your bosses shaped you as a leader the most?

I worked closely with Mr S Nadkarni, Mr (Narayanan) Vaghul and Mr KV Kamath. Mr Nadkarni was a
leader par excellence. When he got an offer from IDBI, I almost felt orphaned. Mr Vaghul was a visionary
as well. But Mr Kamath was the one who most impacted and reshaped the leader in me. In our culture, we
have great reverence for gurus and he would be mine.

Did your education in law and science help in your management career?
My law degree helped me be a logical thinker and gave me a great grounding in life. Whether we were
negotiating a canteen contract or rolling out a new business, law was always important. I can't say the
same for science. Today, when I see youngsters who learn commerce or economics, I envy them, because I
learnt everything from marketing to people management after beginning my career.

What was your focus during the first few days as a CEO?
Being a CEO never held any particular fascination for me. In fact, after I quit ICICI, I felt like I'd lost a
part of my identity. But you have to make the best of your life. I spent the first week at JP Morgan meeting
people from the organisation and our outsourcing centre. JP Morgan is a large and complex organisation
and I just wanted to absorb its structure and vision, instead of walking in with preconceived notions.

What changed when you got the corner office?

At ICICI, Mr Kamath always made us feel that the buck stopped with us. But still there was a certain
comfort in walking across to your boss and talking to him - that always helps you make a decision. As a
CEO here, I can reach out to my colleagues, but otherwise I'm pretty much on my own.

How do you learn?

Learning happens by observing and asking questions, especially to youngsters. Youngsters are brimming
with ideas and energy. I also do a lot of external networking through the various boards I am part of,
where I interact with my peer group and learn different styles of management.

Is there one KalpanaMorparia principle of management that you believe in?

I feel articulating a principle means that you are standing still on that principle, and I believe in evolution.
However, one core philosophy has been to get the best person for the job at hand.

One personal flaw in your style of management?

I have heard my team members tell me that I expect too much. They even did a spoof about this. Some
seniors were asked to select a cricket team and in the spoof, they had me saying that even before selecting
the team, let us set a target of 5000 runs which is an impossible task, even if you score a six off every
ball! But I believe that with JP Morgan's platform and the opportunities India presents, nothing is
impossible.

How do you achieve buy-in?

A lot of my team members will tell you I am a tough boss but I believe I am a softie. I like hearing differing
views. I have held roles where I didn't have the functional expertise but I found that if I spent enough time
to pick the right leaders and engage them, I could get a consensus wherein everybody has a sense of
ownership.

What do you do to unwind after work?

My work is my life, so work-life balance doesn't mean much to me. But I watch Bollywood movies and
read fiction and non-fiction. I recently read a great book called Team of Rivals, which is about Abraham
Lincoln and the Civil War. It is a great book on leadership.

You are a great film buff. Which ones are your favourite?
Yes. My favourite films are Mughal-e-Azam and Trishul. I am also a big fan of Shahrukh Khan, who I
consider a genuinely good human being. Once, Shahrukh and I were on the same Mumbai-Delhi flight. At
the time, he was ICICI's brand ambassador and though we'd met before, I didn't go up to him, since I
didn't think he'd recognise me. But when the plane landed, I was struggling to get my bag off the overhead
cabin and he jumped up to help. Feeling foolish, I introduced myself and he immediately said he had
recognised me, but didn't want to disturb me since I was reading! Of course, he made it all up, but I felt
truly special during that moment.

What would be one thing you would like to change about your life if you could?
Well, I'm childless. If I could go back and change anything, I would have done everything I could to be a
biological mother or to adopt a child.

When do you lie?

Sometimes when you've heard some really bad news or rumours, you don't share it with your team
members when one meets them. So you may not be lying but you aren't disclosing the truth either.

How important is money for you?

It is important, but not the thing that energises me or puts a spring in my step everyday.