Outsourcing: Evalueserve Interview (Part 7)

By guest author Tony Scott

Global Leaders: Bridges Across Cultures

Tony: What about your leadership team? As you look at the kind of leadership team you need around the world to help drive your company forward, what do you think are going to be the key strengths you will need to help you be successful?

Alok: We were just talking about those cultural reasons, and that’s actually a good segue into this question. That’s why we are looking increasingly at the vice president and the assistant vice president level for people who may be Chinese or Indians living in the United States or Canada and who want to move back to China or India. Over the years, those people have changed their thought processes and are much more adept at innovation, providing thought leadership, value-add and so on – the characteristics we need for our company to be successful.

Tony: That’s actually a very big play in fast-moving industry sectors such as technology or financial services. I am an executive search consultant; that’s why I became interested in this issue. To me, the issue facing human capital leadership and building leadership teams that can work across cultures and borders is most acute in outsourcing services businesses, because the main assets you have are your people, and leading across cultures is very difficult. We have brought people from the United States and the United Kingdom back to China and India for leadership roles, and it works really well because those people are already adept at being the bridges between cultures.

Alok: Right, absolutely. For example, the head of our financial vertical did his engineering degree in India. Then in 1990 he came to the United States and did his master’s. He then did his MBA at NYU, and he spent a fair bit of time at Goldman Sachs and other places in New York City and London. A person like him is ideal for running that business, because he understands how our clients work and think. We are looking for more such people; otherwise, it becomes a capacity constraint, because the world going to clearly become even more global within one generation.

In fact, I would be surprised if the requirement ten years from now – or maybe even five years from now – would be that for anybody to be CEO of a Global 5000 company, the person has to have run an operation of profit and loss for at least three years outside of the United States or the company’s home country.

Tony: Frankly, it’s one of the things that I always look for when I’m conducting a CEO search for companies today. It is one of the big check marks I am looking for to understand how flexible a person is, and to see if they really know how to build a team that’s going to have to span the globe. The model of having the “eagle’s nest” of everybody being in one location and everybody looking like one another just doesn’t work anymore. Well . . . you and I are preaching to the same choir here, so to speak!

This segment is part 7 in the series : Outsourcing: Evalueserve Interview
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