For CEOs like Vinita Bali and Vineet Nayar, career gets diverse after retirement

NEW DELHI: CEOs wear many hats and play many a role within the organisation they lead. And, as they move off the corporate limelight and give up day-to-day operational management, many of these business leaders are juggling multiple roles that provide diversity the CEO job cannot offer.

Vinita Bali’s plural career started when she took up a full-time operational role as managing director of Britannia Industries. She was on a few overseas boards even then. For her, this diversity was very attractive.

                                                                    Vinita Bali

"Through this, you learn about different industries; you’re not focused only on your operational responsibilities." Currently, she is on two boards abroad, in the UK and Switzerland. At home, she continues to be a director at Crisil (since 2014) and Titan (since 2006). She also sits on the board of the Hindu group of newspapers.

Bali was among 27 global leaders appointed by the UN secretary general to stand on the lead group of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement. She is the chairperson of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and is on the advisory board of Cornell University’s department of nutritional science. Apart from this, she advises the board of IIM Bangalore.

Bali is working longer hours now than she used to when she had the operational job at Britannia. "In an operational role, you are responsible for just that and so you spend a lot of time doing largely one thing. Today, the people that I work with give me a global perspective, literally, from all over the world," she said.

Bali was clear that she wanted to live the next 20 years of her life very differently from the previous 20. "I now travel a lot, my day can end with sitting in on a call with the UN late at night and a new day can begin with looking at the retail strategy for Titan.

" Life has been busier after stepping down from operational roles for several others as well. HCL Technologies’ former CEO Vineet Nayar has always been fascinated by the power of innovative ideas. HCL Comnet was a billion-dollar startup built on the idea of remote management, HCL Technologies had seen a multibillion dollar transformation around the idea of his book Employees First, Customer Second.

For him, life after HCL grew across dimensions: some planned and some accidental. He offers free mentorship to 18 aspiring startups. He also acts as an adviser to large global corporations around digital transformation and building high-performance teams, which helps fund work at his NGO, Sampark Foundation

"I live a life where we are resource-starved and ideas can only be implemented by influencing others rather than commanding them. This is definitely more exciting and challenging than anything I have done till date and more scary too, as probability of failures is much higher," he said.

Plural careers are rewarding, offer flexibility and have a huge upside because they offer value creation and the diversity to do multiple roles, said Sanjay Kapoor, former CEO of Bharti Airtel.

Kapoor is leveraging his experience of three decades across multiple careers. While he offers consulting, he has invested in a bunch of startups and mentors them as well, and is on the boards of many companies.

"While as a CEO you build strong teams to strategise and deliver, donning multiple hats may be unstructured initially but decades of training brings in some structure to your approach," said Kapoor.

For Ravi Venkatesan, the former India head of Microsoft, it gave the time and freedom to do what he wanted. "As we get older, the central questions to think about are: 'Why am I here?' 'How will I measure my life?' I turned 47 and didn't want to postpone doing the things I have wanted to — like writing, strengthening institutions, making a difference to the country and to individuals, having the time to read and think," he said. "There is no certainty whatsoever that any of us will live to 60, then retire and do these things. So I decided to do it now."

Venkatesan's main commitment now is that as the chairman of Bank of Baroda. He is also the founder and chair of a rapidly growing philanthropic movement, Social Venture Partners. He is also working on his next book, What the Heck Do I Do with My Life. For him, all these different experiences are rewarding in different ways. The seven years he spent at Microsoft were intense and exhilarating, the experience of which, he says, he won't trade for anything. "But I wouldn't trade what I am doing now either, since it gives me freedom and satisfaction." He serves on several boards, including of Infosys and Rockefeller Foundation. He founded and is a venture partner at Unitus Seed Fund, and is a fund adviser at Kalaari Capital.