Before joining Grameenphone Ltd in January 2013 as CEO, Vivek Sood was executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of the Indian mobile operator Uninor. With more than 42 million subscribers, Uninor is one of the fastest growing mobile operators in India. His 22 years of experience also includes executive positions in companies like Tata AIG life Insurance, Hutchison Telecom, Tupperware India and Hindustan Lever Limited (Unilever).
In the Leadership Summit 2014 organised by Bangladesh Brand Forum, Sood’s discussion revolved around the topic, Communication to Connectivity. Dhaka Tribune discussed views on leadership, key challenges for Bangladesh and the critical areas for improvement for leadership in the country on a previous interview with Sood. At the Leadership Summit 2014, DT caught up with him for a follow up discussion, where the extensively experienced business leader offered further food for thought.
What I learnt in Bangladesh
What I found remarkable about Bangladesh is that when it comes to regulations, stakeholders are very open minded and there is always a dialogue possible – quite unlike a number of other countries where you can’t initiate free and fair dialogue. Provided one has the patience and perseverance to carry the dialogue through, I feel the opportunity is always here. This has been a different experience for me here than in other markets.
I think the state of corporate leadership when it comes to multinationals, where I am experienced, is pretty much the same here as it is in India. When it comes to domestic businesses, India is much more professional because of the sheer fact that large business houses in India have decided to venture out of the country and setup corporations out of India and become multinationals themselves.
They have had to do this by becoming much more professional and mature in dealing with issues such as governance, for example, which is something missing in Bangladesh.
Going forward
I think we had some good sessions at the Leadership Summit on how this country should develop leadership, but as was pointed out, the starting point is really about education; students need to be taught from early childhood how to be leaders instead of followers.
I think Bangladesh has spent too much time on educating in terms of content but not educating in terms of behaviour, in terms of developing traits, which can actually help them become leaders in the future. Leadership is also about how people are groomed to take over leadership positions. That is something which has to be the responsibility of preceding leaders.
In the corporate world, people at the top have to take the responsibility to develop their replacements, and that only come when they have a long term stake and look at succession as a way forward.
My belief is that prosperity and the will to prosper has to be a driving force for people to get educated and to me that’s pivotal. The focus has to be giving people the reason to work hard so that they can be employed and for that to happen we first need to create opportunities. That’s what the country should work towards.
As I talked about at the Summit, it’s all about connectivity and connectivity is about creating equilibrium, creating equality across geographies. If you’re able to provide good connectivity for getting information, knowledge, infrastructure, there would be less need for people to move to the city for job opportunities.
Bangladesh needs to have the right kind of access available outside of Dhaka for people to find occupations. The government has to play a big role in terms of developing the right kind of infrastructure, where people and industries can move and start setting up establishments outside of Dhaka.
Education and connectivity
Going forward, connectivity must revolutionise education. We can develop online schools where somebody sitting in Dhaka can educate the young primary school children in some remote areas.
There is an opportunity for such things, however, what’s more important is that companies like Grameenphone can provide the access and we can provide the infrastructure, but there has to be somebody else with an expertise in developing the content. Because with this kind of modern means of disseminating education, it cannot be stagnant content, one have to always dynamically improve it with changing environment, so it’s a continuous process. We have examples of such projects being successful in India, and it can happen here.
Critical leadership traits
What I practice is: if you have confidence in yourself, you should be bold enough to take new challenges; for a leader there is never any taking the backseat. A leader must also be a people person, which means dealing with the lowest rung of his organisation to the highest echelons effectively while keeping them satisfied. A leader should also be willing to take risks, and learn to live with the consequences of the risks.
The next step
This Summit is being trans-communicated across 16 colleges and universities but one has to take it forward from there; you can’t just have a onetime event, it has to be a continuous process. The responsibility is with us leaders; we have to take the initiative and talk to the people and engage them more often. Such events often lose their significance after a while, unless we continue on the path.
