Unceremonious exits of Cyrus Mistry and Vishal Sikka have sparked the debate on whether it is difficult for the professional CEOs of firms with ‘legacy’ to perform and work.
There are ample examples against it: AM Naik to SN Subrahmanyan at L&T, YC Deveshwar to Sanjiv Puri at ITC, KV Kamath to Chanda Kochhar at ICICI Bank and S Ramadorai to N Chandrasekaran at Tata Consultancy Services are just a few examples of CEOs who served/are serving companies with ‘legacy’ with aplomb. It cannot be generalized. Even in mid-sized firms like Jyothy Laboratories, professionals like Ullas Kamath have made their own identity aside from the founder M P Ramachandran.
The CEO is usually appointed after a lot of due diligence and search. Compatibility of the CEO with the values and culture of the company is an important aspect. So is the ability to take the organization to the next level. There may be many decisions that need different approach than what were taken earlier. In pursuit of long-term performance and transformation of the company there may be a path that was not trodden by the predecessor that is needed to be taken now. Different does not mean wrong…Read more.
Author: Nupur Pavan Bang, Associate Director and Professor Kavil Ramachandran, Executive Director at the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at ISB.
Source: This article is extracted from News18 dated August 21, 2017.
