India's Leading Export: CEOs

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2084441,00.html

by pham • 15 years ago

52 35 15 years ago

time.com

teyc• 15 years ago

I think the article draw a rather long bow.

The bottom line is these people speak English and are perceived to be able to bridge the gap between the East and West.

wisty• 15 years ago

It spends a lot of time talking about the Indian's ability to cut through red tape, compared to the Chinese use of "connections", but only brings up "English" twice, and not as the decisive factor. I think it really plays down the importance of English skills.

I'd expect Brazilians to also do quite well, as they tend to have pretty good English.

null_para2• 15 years ago

Wrong generalization. How many fortune 500 CEOs are from India? I can count on my fingers (correct me if I'm wrong)

P.S. Part of my ethnicity is Indian..

kakashi_• 15 years ago

How many of the top "Indian Companies" have foreigners as CEOs? I can count on my fingers (correct me if I'm wrong).

P.S.: It depends on a big load of factors!

null_para2• 15 years ago

How many Indian companies are in fortune 500 list? I can count on my fingers :)

prabodh• 15 years ago

The article says most number of Non-american CEOs of fortune 500 are from India....Definitely export from India

lazy_nerd• 15 years ago

India has also given people like Rajat Gupta (ex-Mckinsey Director) and others involved in the insider trading case.

kaze• 15 years ago

Since there are a billion plus Indians, the statistics say that you are bound to get a few very smart people from among them.

sbhat7• 15 years ago

Well, if you look at India's performance in the Olympics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_at_the_Olympics), thats not necessarily true.

rluhar2• 15 years ago

I don't think it is quite the right comparison. I think most Indians who end up being CEO (or senior executives) in companies have had some sort of post graduate education abroad, or they have work experience starting in a multi national corporation in India.

For excellence in sports, particularly at the olympic level, you need training facilities, budgets and infrastructure in the country. You will find that India is sorely looking in these!

I do not see what the ethnicity of these people has to do with their success. I think more credit should be due to the organisations who hired and supported them up the career ladder.

rjvir• 15 years ago

The article states that aside from Americans, there are more Indian CEOs than any other nationality - even Canadian and Chinese, which presumably have a higher population in America than Indians do.

Although statistically, Indians should have a few smart people anyways, the number of CEOs the nation exports is disproportionately high in comparison to other countries.

deepGem2• 15 years ago

Well, "Few very smart people" does not really correlate to 13 CEOs of the top Fortune companies.

Also, how is population related to this ? Europe also has a population of about 850 million - how many CEOs has Europe produced ? I mention Europe because it's the closest in comparison to India in terms of population diversity.

jayzee• 15 years ago

jugaad~=hustle

balakk• 15 years ago

i thought jugaad was a hack.. not a native hindi speaker though. It's a word that has exactly the same +ve and -ve connotations of a hack.

kgthegreat• 15 years ago

jugaad=hack

pontiacred• 15 years ago

As a turbaned Sikh, it's encouraging to see Ajay Banga as the CEO of MasterCard. That being said I'd really like some elaboration on what they mean when they say Indian CEOs show a level of business ethics not seen in the west. It's based off a study done by Haygroup but they don't provide a link to the study or how it was carried out.

EDIT: http://www.haygroup.com/ww/Downloads/Details.aspx?ID=1187

This links to a white paper that I think is the one referred to in the article but you have to sign up to get it.

johnx123-up4• 15 years ago

OT: From where these "fortune" companies take big projects? I have seen many Indian freelancers bid as low as $50 for 1-week worth projects. (We have used http://www.cssilize.com/ that charges as low as $35)

handzhiev2• 15 years ago

It's $35 per page. You don't think they work 1 week on a page I hope.

johnx123-up4• 15 years ago

Oh, well. Even then, Indian pricing on freelancer sites are too low. Still a mystery to me how they survive and get fortune card.

patio112• 15 years ago

They go to a few big outsourcing suppliers: Infosys, Tata, etc. These do work roughly equivalent (in character, at any rate) to the consulting arms of large American business process/tech companies, such as an IBM, Oracle, or what have you.

Fortune 500 companies are not in the market for $50 a week labor from individuals. (They may well be hiring it, somewhere down the food chain, but it will be balled up with 800 similarly situated individuals for a $XX million a year contract.)

johnx123-up4• 15 years ago

If you have fair amount of knowledge, can you please elaborate on this? What makes these large American companies to pay in millions when they can hire freelancers in few dollars? Any lobby involved?

known2• 15 years ago

Indians among most corrupt while doing business abroad http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/24/indians-among-...

digamber_kamat• 15 years ago

Indians are self obsessed with such things. Time to move beyond this silly rhetoric.

gopi• 15 years ago

>> Indian CEOs show a level of business ethics not seen in the west

I doubt it...

India's Leading Export: CEOs

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