JUST in CEO
How do newly minted CEOs build
their personal brand?
When Gaurang Pandya was named
President of UTC Building and Industrial Systems in March, his first priority
was to appoint someone to take over his old job. Pandya was earlier managing
director of UTC's climate control division (of Carrier fame), the company's
largest vertical, which made him the natural choice for the top post at UTC
India when the earlier President, Zubin Irani, quit to join a private equity
firm. Pandya needed to familiarise himself with the company's other verticals
but before that, he needed to ensure a smooth transition at Carrier. “My
appointment as President had a cascading effect in terms of succession. For
every person who was promoted as a result, a successor had to be decided,“ he
says.
Once he settled the succession
process at Carrier, Pandya moved on to better acquainting himself with
leaders in UTC's other divisions, such as Otis Elevators.“I knew everybody
but I'd worked with only half of them,“ he says. “There's always some
apprehension when a new guy comes in because he brings in a new thought
process. The best way to handle it is to communicate clearly. I travelled to
all our factories, offices, project sites to talk to people directly and
ensure nothing is lost in translation.“
To lead not just run
New CEOs certainly need to work
quickly to establish their personal brand. Those appointed from within the
organisation already have some brand equity, but those appointed from outside
often need to build it from scratch.
Anand Kripalu was appointed manag
ing director & CEO of United Spirits last year, after spending seven
months in the com pany as CEO des ignate. Since then, he has spent most of
his time meeting stakeholders and addressing issues like organisational
culture, ethics, strategy. “I need to be seen and heard. People needed to
feel my impact. After all, the CEO embodies the culture of the company,“ he
says.
Like Kripalu, Vivek Gambhir had
the benefit of a short stint as strategy head at Godrej Consumer Products
before he was named MD. But unlike Kripalu, who had earlier been managing
director of Cadbury, Gambhir had never been CEO.“I quickly realised that
being CEO is about leading and not running the company,“ he says. “You are
responsible for thousands of people and you are the guardian of the company's
values.“
Indeed, most CEOs say that there
is a palpable change in the way former peers relate to them once they are
named for the top post, which makes the job rather lonely.Earlier the head of
the enterprise vertical at Lenovo India, Rahul Agarwal was promoted to
managing director two months ago and he felt perceptions change
immediately.“I watch what I say in meetings these days,“ he says. “I begin
with a disclaimer that I am here as an observer and that everything I say
should not be taken as directions.“
The big impact
New CEOs know that everybody
-including the Board that hired them -is watching to see what they do in
their initial months. But as they strive to make their impact on the
organisation, new CEOs face a dilemma: how fast should they move? “The
pressure is there to deliver results, but you have to keep in mind the long
term,“ says Gambhir. “There are no silver bullets for a CEO in the first 100
days. You have to be demanding, but also culturally aware so as not to upset
things.“
One of Gambhir's more visible
actions in his first few months was to abolish the position of international
operations head and have the CEOs of international subsidiaries report directly
to him. At UTC, one of Pandya's early wins was to accelerate localisation in
the Otis manufacturing facility in Bangalore, rolling out high-end elevator
models that were previously imported. R Suresh, managing director of
headhunting firm RGF India says it's important for new CEOs to make a
tangible difference as soon as they can: “Of course, they need to get to know
people in the organisation, but it is best done on the job...while tackling a
major business problem. After the long and gruelling hiring process, the
board has the right to expect that from the new CEO.“
Suresh gives the example of a CEO
he helped place who resolved a tax dispute that had been hanging over the
company, by bringing in a new lawyer he knew to the case. He also gives the
example of Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys, who is known to have started by
visiting key customers, taking his senior executives with him. “His direct
reports essentially learnt of his vision for the company when he explained it
to customers,“ says Suresh.
Be that as it may, some CEOs would
rather not rush it. In the last stages of his recruitment as CEO of Raymond,
some Board members asked Sanjay Behl what he expected to achieve in the first
100 days.“I said `nothing'. My priority, I told them, was to understand the
industry and the company, which meant travelling to all the production
facilities, the market, the retail stores. If I was going to change anything,
it would only be after I understood how things worked,“ says Behl. Behl moved
to Raymond from Reliance Communications, an industry with a culture very
different from textiles. After getting to know the company better, he swung
into action with a series of very visible moves like restructuring the
organisation, outsourcing the IT function and recruiting a slew of senior
people.Most of them are in newly created posts like e-commerce head and chief
marketing officer. Putting together a high grade team should be a new CEO's
highest priority says Behl, even if means getting new people to replace the
old. “When it's a large organisation like Raymond, you should try and keep at
least two-thirds of the existing team. The rest should be new hires.“
Scions of family-run companies
face the same issues as their professional counterparts, the only difference
being that they're usually younger. Anant Goenka was named managing director
of Ceat at the age of 30, after spending two years as deputy managing
director under the mentorship of old-timer Paras Choudhury, who retired in
2012. As a member of the promoter family, Goenka knew the company culture
well, but upon assuming charge, he was faced with a classic dilemma: who
would be on his core team? “You never get a perfect team,“ he says.“You have
to drop a few weak performers, bring in new people. But as a newcomer, you
can't be overtly critical, or you will rub people the wrong way. It was
difficult for me because I attained the position because of my family,
instead of 100% merit. But once I gained confidence, I got into the difficult
conversations that building a good team requires.“
Even as he was building his team,
Goenka announced some high impact strategic decisions at Ceat, such as the
shift in focus from truck tyres to twowheeler and SUV tyres. His succession
to the post of CEO marked a new beginning for Ceat and he used it to reach
out to the unionised workers at the company's plants in Mumbai and Vadodara.
“Tyre making requires manual effort, but I've been trying to make it less
laborious by investing in a few tools. Even small things like installing
better ventilation makes a big difference. You have to earn the worker's
trust by making their work easier where possible.“
MNC playbook
As an increasing number of global
companies start operations in India, there's another set of new CEOs
emerging: the country heads. These CEOs don't get to move into a ready
infrastructure they have to create organisations from scratch. When Manu
Jain was appointed India head of Xiaomi a year ago, he was the Chinese cell
phone maker's first employee in the country. He has recruited 35 people since
then, many of them former entrepreneurs like himself. “When I was in China
for the interviews, the promoters told me they wanted a flat,
non-hierarchical organisation,“ says Jain. “Headquarters hasn't given us
revenue targets or KPIs, they just want us to focus on the needs of Indian
consumers, solve pains.That is a different approach because country heads are
usually concerned about sales.“
Indeed, some view these CEOs as
glorified sales managers, but these openings are certainly giving talented
CXOs a shot at upgrading their careers and gaining valuable experience. When
Concur, a subsidiary of SAP, recently decided to expand its sales office in
Mumbai into a full-fledged operation, it recruited Ramesh Iyer as managing
director, India. Iyer has since recruited 30 people and using the contacts he
developed in his previous job as business president at Tata Teleservices, he
has managed to bag a big order for Concur's expense-management software from
one of India's more prominent IT companies, thereby establishing himself as a
successful new CEO. “As CEO, your outlook changes completely. You get to
define strategy for the company. You no longer play second fiddle, you are
the fiddle,“ he says
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By Dibeyendu Ganguly
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CDET28AUG15
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