457: 43.06 Rajat Gupta - Transitioning across cultures

NUGGET CONTEXT

Rajat speaks about what it takes to build trust at the highest level with clients. He talks about how sometimes, it takes several years to cultivate a client and how the door opens at the right time if there is adequate trust that has been built with the client.

GUEST

Rajat Gupta is a former CEO (Managing Partner) of McKinsey & Co. and led the firm between 1994 to 2003 across 3 terms of 3 years each. He was the first non-American CEO of McKinsey & Co. and arguably one of the first Indians to lead a pedigreed organization at a Global level. In 2012, Rajat was convicted on charges of insider trading and sentenced to two years in Jail. He recently published his memoir, titled “Mind without Fear” published by Juggernaut Books.

Given most of the press coverage around the book has focused on the nuts and bolts of the trial, I decided not to focus on it. Given this podcast is about learning from people’s journeys, I decided to spend time on how Rajat has grown as a person through his various experiences at McKinsey and subsequently. We also spend time on some of the choices he has made and some choices that he wishes that he made differently at various points in time.

If you are looking for specifics on the Raj Rajaratnam trial, Rajat’s dynamic with Preet Bharara or why he did not testify when he had an opportunity, you may be disappointed. But if you are open to immersing yourself in his journey, you might pick up a thing or two through osmosis (something he speaks about during the conversation).

Published in April 2019\.

HOST

Deepak is a Leadership Advisor and an Executive Coach. He works with leaders to improve their effectiveness and in helping them make better decisions specifically around organizational and career transitions. He currently runs Transition Insight (www.transitioninsight.com) and works with leaders to handle phases of transition thoughtfully. He has worked as an Operations Consultant with KPMG in UK, Strategy Consultant with McKinsey in the US and as a Leadership Consultant with EgonZehnder (a Swiss Leadership Advisory firm) where he helped companies recruit CEOs, CXOs and Board Members and worked on Leadership Development. Deepak is a certified CEO Coach and is an alumnus of IIT Madras, IIM Ahmedabad and London Business School. His detailed profile can be found at https://in.linkedin.com/in/djayaraman

OTHER GUESTS

1.Vijay Amritraj 2.Amish Tripathi 3.Raghu Raman 4.Papa CJ 5.Kartik Hosanagar 6.Ravi Venkatesan 7.Abhijit Bhaduri 8.Viren Rasquinha 9.Prakash Iyer 10.Avnish Bajaj 11.Nandan Nilekani 12.Atul Kasbekar 13.Karthik Reddy 14.Pramath Sinha 15.Vedika Bhandarkar 16.Vinita Bali 17.Zia Mody 18.Rama Bijapurkar 19.Dheeraj Pandey 20.Anu Madgavkar 21.Vishy Anand 22\. Meher Pudumjee 23.KV Shridhar (Pops) 24.Suresh Naraynan 25.Devdutt Pattanaik 26.Jay Panda 27.Amit Chandra 28.Chandramouli Venkatesan 29.Roopa Kudva 30.Vinay Sitapati 31.Neera Nundy. 32.Deepa Malik 33.Bombay Jayashri. 34.Arun Maira 35.Ambi Parameswaran 36.OP Bhaat 37.Indranil Chakraborty 38.Tarun Khanna 39\. Ramachandra Guha 40\. Stewart Friedman 41\. Rich Fernandez 42\. Falguni Nayar

DISCLAIMER

All content and opinions expressed in the podcast are that of the guests and are not necessarily the opinions of Deepak Jayaraman and Transition Insight Private Limited. Views expressed in comments to blog are the personal opinions of the author of the comment. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Company or the author of the blog. Participants are responsible for the content of their comments and all comments that are posted are in the public domain. The Company reserves the right to monitor, edit, and/or publish any submitted comments. Not all comments may be published. Any third-party comments published are third party information and The Company takes no responsibility and disclaims all liability. The Company reserves the right, but is not obligated to monitor and delete any comments or postings at any time without notice.