Francisco D'Souza was 38 when he became the CEO and president of Cognizant in 2007. In five years since, he has led the company from $1.4 billion to over $6 billion in revenues. The board picked him young, but only on merit. "It was all about expertise and track record. If anything, my age was seen as an advantage," he recalls.
Only 43, D'Souza is already the leader of 130,000 employees. What does he do next, with at least 17 years ahead in his career? His answer is as simple as it is chilling - there is always an expectation to do more and faster. Welcome inside the mind of a leader who has already scaled the peak and still has plenty of age and drive left in him.
Across India Inc, more and more men and women are walking into the corner room before they turn 40. Sanket Akerkar, the India head of Microsoft, became MD at 37; Ajay Srinivasan, who heads the Aditya Birla group's financial services business, first became CEO at 34 and has carried the title for 14 years.
For them, getting to the top was just one half of their career challenge. Staying there, and meeting expectations, is the second and perhaps more difficult half.
ET spoke to both these men and more like them, headhunters and mentors, to identify key characteristic traits that propel people early to the very top...and help them do well there. We found five. Read on and find out if you have them.
They start well and seize the crucial moment R Suresh, MD-India, Stanton Chase International, who successfully placed 8-10
CEOs under 40 in the last financial year, draws out three distinctive phases in their career. First is the formative - brilliant academics, IIT plus IIM or equivalent to start with.
Next, he says, comes the adolescence phase - this should have had at least 10 years of structured grooming with exposure to multiple disciplines. Lastly, there is the adult phase - there should have been at least a 5-year period where expertise in cross-functional management, risk taking, strategy and managing other leaders get engrained.
"The crucial part is those five years wherein the bright adolescence gets morphed into matured adult-capabilities. The leadership potential can be spotted five years before the selection," says Suresh.
That was the case for Microsoft's Akerkar. Conversations and preparation for a role in India started 4-5 years ago before he assumed charge in 2010 as India head. He was working for the company in the US back then. He had two stints with McKinsey before that, split by an MBA in 1998 from the Kellogg School of Management.
"Getting an experience to work in India was important for me. One, India is a growth market and from a personal point of view, I was keen on an India stint because I am of Indian descent," he says.
"It's about seizing opportunities and proving your mettle," says Cognizant's D'Souza.
"Early in my career, I was presented with an opportunity to work with a team to build Dun & Bradstreet's IT captive in India. I jumped at the opportunity, and that captive became Cognizant," he says.
CEOs MUST REMAIN FOCUSED They think like marathoners A headhunter who did not wish to be named says some companies often question the wisdom of anointing a CEO at 34-35. "You burn out fast. How many peaks can you achieve in your career?" he asks. That's perhaps why Ajay Srinivasan, chief executive - financial services, Aditya Birla Group, sees his career as a marathon.
"We need to think of our careers in the way a marathoner thinks about running; not the way a sprinter does," he says. "There will be ups and downs; good days and bad. A sprinter will lose if he does not have a good start or stumbles on the way. The marathoner can deal with these and still come out ahead."
Srinivasan has been working for 24 years and he has been a CEO for more than half his working career. He became the CEO of Prudential ICICI AMC when he was 34. He spent a couple of years in this role before he was asked by Prudential to move to Hong Kong to head their fund management business across Asia.
By the age of 37, he had become a CEO of CEOs, as he went about building a regional fund management business for Prudential across Asia. As the business grew, he had the CEOs of 10 countries reporting to him. He then came back to India in 2007 to head the Aditya Birla Group's financial services businesses.
They keep it Humble When he is searching for young CEOs, one trait K Sudarshan, Managing Partner-India, EMA Partners International, keenly looks for is humility. "Arrogance is a put-off when companies are searching for young leaders," he says. That's also a function of the volatile economy. "Attitude works well when the going is good, but in tough times, egotism and over-confidence are least desirable."
He recalls an instance where a company was not comfortable with the attitude of the young CEO they wanted to hire, but he was immensely talented. He was taken on board, but he could not sustain his success as he started to alienate people in the organisation due to his 'I have arrived' attitude. Microsoft's Akerkar has decided to keep it simple. "Listening, learning from others around you.... you have to go with humility - regardless of who it is in the organisation."
They know that power corrupts Young CEOs are power-drunk, declares a Delhi-based headhunter. "Power gets to their mind. They are brash, aggressive and full of themselves," she says. The biggest worry this set of young CEOs have is - how they are perceived by others. That's where they sow the seeds of their nemesis.
"We no longer support command-and-control, climb-the-ladder models or densely layered organisational hierarchies," says D'Souza. It is important to remain consensus-driven and comfortable with a partnership approach to client management. No single individual can execute successfully in this fast and complex world, he adds.
"I may be impatient, but I am not brash," says Akerkar. "The biggest shift for me has been continuously moving up in strategic thinking. You need to continuously develop yourself and never want to succumb to Peter's Principle." (Peter Principle says in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Thus, as people move up the ladder, they become progressively less-effective because good performance in one job does not guarantee similar outcome in another.)
They expect the unexpected It's all right to face the unexpected, fail and start afresh. Remain unfazed. Successful young leaders view mistakes as objective results, not as permanent or personal failures, so they are not afraid to make bold decisions., even if they are not always right.
Srinivasan recalls big external challenges from his first CEO role. "The Pokhran blasts rattled markets around the time we were launching our first funds. We faced highly unfavourable circumstances as we first went to market," he recalls.
Similarly, as a young Regional CEO in Asia (he was then 37), the challenges were slightly different. First, he had to learn to operate one more step removed from the CEO since he was now working through other CEOs. Second, he had to be much more aware of cultural differences, as the same culture did not operate across the 10 markets he was responsible for. Finally, he had to contend with SARS, which essentially rocked large bits of Asia as he began building the business across the continent.
Also, in a roller coaster economy, when the traits needed to lead businesses change every six months, there is one constant - risk appetite. "Companies look for an ability to take risk and not be stupid about it," says Vikram Chhachhi, executive V-P, DHR International.
Besides, D'Souza says the current environment of volatility, that's already lasted four years now, is something that most CEOs have never faced before. "We have all the elements of rapid change combined with economic, political, and social uncertainty. Uncertainty is the new normal," he says.
"Being a young CEO isn't much different from being an older CEO."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/Young-leaders-Key-traits-of-big-achievers-under-40-years/articleshow/12552317.cms
