R Gopalakrishnan
 "R Gopalakrishnan")
R Gopalakrishnan
R Gopalakrishnan has been at top of corporate world in India for over three decades. He is former Director of Tata Sons and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever. He has over 30 years of board experience and currently serves as an independent director of listed companies, Castrol India and one of Sri Lankan conglomerates, Hemas. He also worked as independent director of Press Trust of India. He has been appointed as Distinguished Professor of IIT, Kharagpur and Executive-in-Residence at SPJIMR, Mumbai. He studied physics at Kolkata University, engineering at IIT Kharagpur and attended Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
R Gopalakrishnan has been at top of corporate world in India for over three decades. He is former Director of Tata Sons and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever. He has over 30 years of board experience and currently serves as an independent director of listed companies, Castrol India and one of Sri Lankan conglomerates, Hemas. He also worked as independent director of Press Trust of India. He has been appointed as Distinguished Professor of IIT, Kharagpur and Executive-in-Residence at SPJIMR, Mumbai. He studied physics at Kolkata University, engineering at IIT Kharagpur and attended Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
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Preserving SHE values in institutions
Most companies, scientific and educational bodies, and charitable organisations encounter two challenges - developing sound business philosophies and safeguarding them across generation
 "Preserving SHE values in institutions")
SHE can coexist with enterprise
Unilever has successfully demonstrated how virtue can be sustained over generations in enterprise. Can the same be said about venerable Indian companies?
 "SHE can coexist with enterprise")
Is SHE enterprise an oxymoron?
History is replete with examples of when an enlightened business approach did not prevail, but even cynics agree it is worth striving for
 "Is SHE enterprise an oxymoron?")
Tono-Bungay enterprise
Today, as in the days of HG Wells, the dilemma that society faces is one of the need for aggressive entrepreneurs, but not entrepreneurs who undertake spiralling risks, unfettered by ethics or nous.
The idea of a board coach
To improve governance, can a coach help by holding a behavioral mirror to a board?
Timely response in governance
Commentary on misgovernance dwells on misdemeanour, but perpetrators often do not demonstrate malintent. There are plenty of smoke signals, however, before every episode
The power of 'obliquity'
Corporate leaders aggressively pursue shareholder wealth creation. But companies that put more emphasis on profit are, in fact, less profitable
The mercurial should not trump the methodical
Mercurial founders get disproportionate public exposure, but nothing pulls down leaders with extra-gravitational speed than front-page coverage in the media
Effective directors display the art of healthy scepticism
Independent directors add value to a company not only through their explicit knowledge and cognitive skills, but also through their experiential intuition and heuristic skills
How history remembers leaders
Leaders are judged in the short term by their rational accomplishments. What lingers are the qualities of heart
The real culture of stewardship
Authored jointly by a business leader, Chairman of IMC Pan Asia, Frederick Tsao, and an academic at Case Western University, Chris Laszlo, the book elegantly harmonises practice and theory
 "The real culture of stewardship")
Bequeathing leaders' experiential wealth
The sharing of experiential assets requires one to upgrade that asset into a customer-friendly form
The new science of a lost art
Borrowing the term crux from mountaineering, Dr Rumelt argues that it represents the most critical challenge to the desired progress
 "The new science of a lost art")
Anthropology can help businesspeople
Applying the intellectual framework of anthropology could help a person see around corners, gain empathy for others, and derive fresh insights on problems
Are we really smarter than our peers?
We don't always know what we think we know
Creating a SHE company
The book is replete with examples of the twin benefits of humility of ignorance and curiosity from passion
 "Creating a SHE company")
In search of CEO excellence
The theme of this book follows in the genre of several books like the Lessons of Excellence by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman - both also, coincidentally, McKinsey consultants
 "In search of CEO excellence")
Narcissus in the boardroom
Media encomiums and the feeling of self-importance are shimmering mirages in the desert of self-delusion
When the spiritual and the material combine
Godmen, like Russian oligarchs, have a cathartic effect on sound lending principles and sustainable enterprise building
Dimensions of leadership
The subject of leadership permits opposite conclusions to be drawn from the same observations and data
 "Dimensions of leadership")