India is not only known for textile export demanded by factories around the world, but also for exporting executives in multinational companies. Management and MBA educated, they occupy the chair of CEO in companies like MasterCard or Pepsi.
Vindi Banga and his brother Ajay graduated from well-known colleges with MBA degrees. Today, the first one is the CEO of Unilever and Ajay is leading the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice.
But the two brothers are not isolated cases. List of successful directors with Indian roots include Citigroup CEO that just resigned, Vikram Pandit, and that of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi. In fact, the latter was chosen last year for the fourth year in a row, the most influential female presence in the business by Forbes magazine. Both attended the prestigious Harvard university. The top of executives and successful businessman also include Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal.
What is the secret of Indian born executives?
With so many Indian executives, the Chinese and the South Asian Indians wonder how they manage to get these jobs. The reason is simple. Jill Ader, CEO of an HR firm, believes that they are born in a booming economy and then schooled in the most successful business schools in the world. In addition, they speak English, the global language of business.
It is risky to generalize these data in a country with a population of 1.2 billion people, but the truth is that more and more Indians get jobs in top companies. An S&P study shows that in a top of the 500 largest companies in the world, most executives are Americans, followed by Indians.
What advantages have companies with an Indian CEO
For multinational companies, executives who worked on the Asian market are definitely an advantage, because they know the characteristics of specific emerging markets. Moreover, companies like Pepsi, Hewlett-Packard and IBM have many manufacturing facilities there and it is natural that the top executives come from such countries.
Unlike Americans, they know how to handle the “jungle” of bureaucratic Indian business environment. And with Chinese, calling on politicians to solve a problem, they support their views.
India’s economic liberalization began in 1991, spurred even more by this generation of managers – gave them access to a growing market. The young executive had to contend with foreign companies and launch better products, but at the same price.
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