July 28, 2013 Thanks to the AGM of HUL being held on Friday July 26, the full-page speech-text was printed in The Economic Times only on Saturday, giving me time to read and re-read the entire speech. And man, what an amazing bouquet of thoughts ! My attempt here to summarise key highlights, and possibly … Continue reading HUL Chairman’s Speech – Learnings galore

July 15, 2013 Have just finished reading (most of) “The Secrets of Leadership” by Prakash Iyer, MD of Kimberley Clark Lever. I say “most of” because of the beautiful construct of the book – it’s an ensemble of short stories each with a moral...or sometimes two. Hence, one can pick and choose the stories to … Continue reading The Secrets of Leadership – some key points

June 9, 2013 My scientist father (and of late, my 10-year old daughter) keep on quizzing me on business and economics with the (dangerous) curiosity of laypersons, and many times the issues are out-of-box and hence uncomfortable. One of the points of discussion was “why should our GDP grow at 9% and not 6% or … Continue reading Why growing at 6%pa is disastrous for India ?

April 14, 2013 Summary : Our lack of privatisation in oil&gas/infra, sustained reservation of backward classes, NREGA type subsidy initiatives, our lop-sided “services-skewed” GDP growth, have in retrospect, proved to be a potent combination in controlling inequality in the past 2-3 decades, as compared to most of the other significant countries in the world. A … Continue reading Of Gini and Genies…why India’s model seems to be working ?

March 3, 2013 Over the past couple of decades, as I moved from being a Gen X to a Gen W to possibly a Gen V person (on a comparative basis with the youth today), I kept on being confronted with younger sisters-in-law and office team members that the only way to listen to music … Continue reading The Fall and Rise of the Global Music Industry