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I am always enthused by the stories of Greek mythology, specifically about the Trojan War where Achilles, the exemplary warrior, fights the battle of Troy.
A prophecy had foretold that Achilles would die at Troy, so when the Greek leaders gather for their campaign to return the abducted Helen, Achilles’ parents attempt to prevent him from joining the expedition. When Achilles asks his mother, she says you will be remembered for merely 2-3 generations in Greek for your bravery, but if you go to Troy the history will remember you… She also adds, but the sad part is if you go to Troy, you may not return home… Achilles decides to head to Troy and we remember him even today after thousands of years.
Leaders are just like warriors to some extent, its not the Trojan War all the time but situations are like Achilles, as they do go through tough situations and take bold decisions.
I often wonder how Ratan Tata would have taken the decision to acquire Jaguar Land Rover and Corus, among the greatest and largest companies in the world. What would have Laxmi Mittal gone through while acquiring Arcelor? Neither being a leader nor chalking leadership plans is easy.
Whether a CFO, a business head, a finance function head, or just a thorough professional, most of you must have taken bold decisions. Today we are living in an unprecedented world, for which economists have coined the term ‘poly crisis’ — where several crises play out at the same time, where taking bold decisions is a must for survival.
We held our ETCFO Leadership Summit and Awards this week and deliberated on how CFOs are resetting the new world order amidst the chaos.
Kewal Handa, an India Inc veteran, who has been the CFO of leading companies and also held various roles, said he dealt with 8-9 CEOs and not all CEOs know what they want. Hence, for CFOs to maintain their leadership with ethics is quite critical.
“As a CFO, you need to have a disciplined mind, a synthesizing mind and a creative mind all in one,” he said.
Mukund Rajan, former Chief Ethics Officer of Tata Sons and Chairman of Ecube India, spoke at length on his learnings from Ratan Tata.
Rajan said being humble, focused and having a vision of Ratan Tata made a difference and made a group at the top. Hence the tone at the top matters.
“He is extremely humble and grounded, somebody who gives respect to all the people. He also knew to reach out for advice. He talked to managers, young people, TAS officers,” Rajan said about Ratan Tata.
ETCFO Leadership Summit
Apart from Rajan and Handa, who were among our top speakers, we also had many leading CFOs of India Inc enthusiastically participating and offering rare insights to ride the turbulent times.
Ritesh Tiwari, ED-Finance & CFO, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, said, “We are in unprecedented times now, and I feel this could be the new normal, with all this volatility and chaos around what we can do is make our business models agile and have the resilience to face the challenges.”
He also said that performance management will be an integral part of a CFO’s job.
Tiwari highlighted the necessity of adapting to the new normal by embracing change, fostering innovation, and increasing organisational risk-taking capabilities.
He said the role of CFOs is to foster purpose-driven organisations, aligning the interests of shareholders, consumers, and employees while focusing on future-oriented metrics.
The consensus among CFOs was that optimising the use of digital efficiency made a difference in performance.
They also said that managing risks was a major challenge and hence scenario planning has become an important tool.
Ultimately what will matter is the agility and resilience to tide over and importantly CFOs need to anticipate the tides also.
At the same time, human resources is also a major challenge.. compensating for new emerging roles and creating a budget for it are the real pain points…
CFOs also want refined and filtered designations.. because they want people with specific knowledge, something like GST expertise.
Rajani Kesari, CFO, Nayara Energy, said women CFOs should also get a similar type of compensation compared to their male counterparts.
The current situation
Sometimes all the seasons hit together. The current economic situation is just like that. On one side, the leading economic indicators such as GST, GDP, FII, market, etc, are showcasing the powerful growth story of India Inc, but on the other side, there are many challenges. Private capex is very low, geopolitical tensions are rising, and from the Suez Canal to the Red Sea the supply chain has been either derailed or in disrupted mode while the global economy, due to high interest rates, is quite discouraging for growth. On top of that, regulators have added various filters of compliance and leaders, specifically CFOs, have no alternative but to navigate.
We, at ETCFO, have tried to decode various layers of CFO strategies, which we will cover in various stories in the coming time. I am also glad to share that we felicitated 30 CFOs with our first ever ‘The Economic Times ETCFO Awards’. (Click here to see them). The idea was to celebrate the excellence in financial leadership. Proud to share that we had the best of the Jurys to evaluate the nominations. While M Damodaran, Former Chief, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was the Jury Chair,
Bhaskar Bodapati, CEO, GMR, Group, V S Parthasarathy, Group CFO & Ex-Group CIO, Mahindra Group, Niranajan Gupta, Hero MotorCorp, Vibha Padalkar, MD&CEO, HDFC Life, Dr. Santrupt Misra, Ex-Director, Group HR- Aditya Birla Group, Ajay Nanavati, Chairman, Quantum Advisors were the jury members.
Importantly, A very happy International Women’s Day to all the women leaders and readers.
(Editor’s Note is a column written by Amol Dethe, Editor, ET CFO. Click here to read more of his articles exploring several buzzing topics.)
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