Corporate Leader – Mr. Sunil Duggal

Director(Non-Executive), Dabur

Interviewer: How does it feel to come back to Joka after so long?

Sunil Duggal: It feels great like coming back home. A lot has changed but a lot remains the same. The campus has not changed in its character.

I: When was the last time you visited the campus?

SD: Around 6 years ago. Before that, I came for my silver reunion which was around 12 years ago. This is my fourth visit after graduation which is not much to speak about but I was pretty busy with work so now as I am getting into semi-retirement, hopefully there will be more opportunities to come.

I: What are the major changes you have observed around the campus?

SD: Between silver jubilee and now things have changed as the number of students have increased tremendously because of which the number of hostels have increased. I haven't really been around the campus so I cannot answer your question very well but the growth has been exponential in the last 15-20 years. As I was speaking to Sumant Sinha, who was in the 25th batch, his batch strength was 140. My batch strength was 109, now it is around 500. There was an inflection point when the campus became very large in terms of the number of students. Gender balance has also improved a lot. In my time, women students were limited to 10 because of the number of rooms in L wing but things have changed. I don't think space is a restriction now so all these artificial barriers are removed but even with all the changes, the campus has retained its character somehow. But I really hope that the students don’t treat this two-year engagement as purely transactional, that we are here for two years, we get a degree and the world opens up to us and then Joka is a forgotten chapter. I hope that is not the case but sometimes I get a feeling that it is. If that happens, it will be a pity as you have to give back to the campus what you took out and we are all trying to find ways to do that. I am sure we will be able to find a way to do that. Another reason that people like me are connected to this campus is that we are very deeply engaged with our batch members. We hang out together all the time, we do trips together, our spouses know each other and they have also become very good friends. So it's a very deep engagement at a personal level that is very special about our batch.

I: What are your fondest memories of Joka?

SD: Fondest memories are the friends I made here. The academics were great, we had excellent faculty, a great team of Professors. There was a lot of take out but the enduring memory and the enduring impact which was there from IIM Calcutta was really the network and the friendships which we made here which has been a very important part of our lives And I think that is what I was encouraging you, to remain connected with your batchmates that is a decision you will never regret. Use social media, it is a fabulous tool to connect. During our time it was much harder, we had Yahoo Groups that also came many years after we passed out. There was no WhatsApp or Facebook.

You may choose to embark upon a path of entrepreneurship or corporate and whichever path you choose you have to excel at that which will come naturally to you. Like I did my engineering but I knew in my third of fourth year that I don't want to make a career in engineering. I liked it but it was not something that I would want to devote my life to. So, I did a pivot came to IIM and did not look at my engineering with any level of seriousness. Having said that education is something that you are always very grateful for. You have to chart your own path but a great enabler will be your peer network from this campus and it will be a big mistake to lose sight of that. Believe me it gives dividends both emotionally and professionally in ways you cannot imagine.

I: You were the CEO of Dabur for 18 years, are there any key learnings that you would want to share with the students?

SD: I would say if you are interested in entrepreneurship, it's a great path to follow but entrepreneurship doesn't have to be building your own business. It can be being entrepreneurial in a corporate setup and Indian companies allow you to do that much more than multinationals. Multinationals have templates, fixed processes and procedures and the flexibility is much lower. I am not saying it's not there but it is much lower, which is why I like working for Indian companies. I'm not going to work now but even if I do an advisory role, it will be only for Indian companies as they give the bandwidth and freedom to innovate which is the other side of the coin to entrepreneurship.

I: Today’s generation is into immediate gratification, they change jobs within 3-4 years. What is your take on that?

SD: Sometimes you have to be a little patient but you have to take call. If this is a dead-end for you then by all means leave. If it is just a plateau, bear with it till the next opportunity comes. But at the same time if the whole ecosystem is evolving in terms of growth and if your own growth is stonewalled then by all means leave. But if it is a temporary hiatus do not let it spook you.

I: Do you think that switching jobs so early would reduce one’s chances of getting into leadership roles in an organization? In a recent interview you gave you mentioned that your successor would be someone inside the company and you also talked about giving appropriate training and guidance to multiple people.

SD: Yes, that is very important. In fact, I left only when I was sure that my succession plan, that I had put into place 3 years ago, was in an advanced stage. If you track the most successful CEOs, they had a long relationship with their company. So, there is definitely a correlation between growth and orderly succession, especially in very complex organizations. Secondly, Dabur is a little unique. It is trying to convert its audience to Ayurveda and herbal therapy so if you have somebody who has belief in that and a genuine empathy with those types of products and solutions, that CEO is likely to succeed much more. And we have an example of my predecessor who joined us from a large global MNC. Now there was nothing wrong with the person, he was also an IIM C graduate by the way and he was a very highly rated Manager. But for him Ayurveda, herbal medicines and herbal products were alien concepts. That is what we want to caution against. Get a person who believes in what you are selling, it is easier to preach to the converted rather that to take somebody from outside. Secondly, in a large complex organization, which is largely promoter owned, the person needs to have the trust of the board and the promoters. In an MNC they have a big advantage that they can pluck someone from any part of the world and he will still have an understanding of the cultural aspects. Indian companies have this huge bottleneck in terms of finding succession, so best is to groom people from within and I think we were lucky enough to have more than one person who could have been my successor. And also give your successor enough runway. Ideally the CEO should be in his 40s but when it’s approaching 50s, it is really time for him to be inducted, you have to give him a ten-year runway as CEO before he retires. So even if you can stay or want to stay you should be a little selfless here and say okay I am going to move out because the organization needs a younger person. Otherwise you are depriving that person of the opportunity and who knows if he may get frustrated and leave and then you lose a great resource.

I: Talking about Ayurveda, there are other competitors coming into the Indian market like Patanjali. So how does that change the overall landscape for Dabur?

SD: Well, it validates what we have been talking about and the fact that Patanjali grew so fast, even though it imploded recently but that is because of its own supply chain and product-related issues, but the belief in Ayurveda has been validated by Patanjali and other multinational companies who have entered this domain. Everybody is singing the same tune which we began 50 years ago and I think it has helped to expand the market, it has helped our business to have long-term growth visibility which is very good for us. I kept telling everybody when Patanjali was growing exponentially and taking share from us that don’t worry it might become our biggest ally tomorrow and that is exactly how it panned out. So anybody who encourages growth of Ayurveda and herbal systems of therapy, medication and cosmetics is our ally in the larger context. If you see it in a narrower perspective in terms of gains or losses or market share, you are losing sight that the market is expanding. Even when we were losing market share our growth was great because the category was expanding so never get too fussed over market share if you are dominant in a single space. See the size of the pie, the pie should be growing even if you get a smaller size.

I: So how did you finally decide it was time to hang your boots?

SD: In fact, 18 years as CEO is one of the longest innings that one can imagine and I think the most important trigger was once the succession was ready, then your inner voice says that you should move out and make room for younger people. I could have carried on for longer but I don’t think it would have been fair to the long term health of the organization because if my successor was older than 55 by the time he took over, it would not have been fair to him and also to the organization and ultimately we are all stakeholders in the organization. And as stakeholders, the long term health is critically important to our own financial health. So there is a self-interest element to it but there is also an altruistic element that you have to put the organization ahead of your own needs and in any case, I think I was ready to move on as 18 years of meeting investors, incessant travel, getting the quarterly results etc. takes a toll.

I: So what do you plan to do next?

SD: I will do advisory roles, I have already begun one and maybe do more than one but if one is big enough I will continue with that. Advisory does not mean responsibility for outcomes and numbers but responsibility for building processes and governance. So basically, making the transformational agenda which we did in Dabur but without my leadership at the helm and I think that is very exciting but building another global Indian brand is something I would love to do.

I: Any final message that you would like to share with the students to help them become successful leaders?

SD: Do not place your self-interest above that of your employer. If you put the organization’s needs above yours, you will be the ultimate beneficiary. Even if that means sometimes you take the back seat in terms of salary or growth. Always be true to your employer because that is where you are getting your everything from and you will be the biggest beneficiary in the long run.