Voices Pushpesh Pant Ravi Shankar Sumeet Bhasin Neha Sinha Anuja Chandramouli mata amritanandamayi MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI June 16 2024 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Second Coming Senior professionals are enjoying second careers and lucrative passions as a new work trend sweeps India and the world By Anjana Vaswani and Mamta Sharma Rohtash Mal, 70 f reincarnation in real life has a candidate, the vote would go to Rohtash Mal. For 40 years in the shark-eat-shark corporate world, he created innovations, steered companies, drove growth and was the treadmill champ among his peers. He accelerated the revenues of Maruti Suzuki. He spread Airtel’s net far and wide as the CEO of its agri machinery group, and turbocharged the sales graph of Escorts tractors and machinery as its Executive Director & CEO. For any corporate rainmaker, it would be time to hang up his boots, lean back in a well-upholstered chair and read Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson with a dram of Lagavulin by his side and a Cohiba shouldering in a crystal ashtray The 70-going-on-30 Mal is all for it, but . has other ideas too. “I wanted to challenge myself and break the monotony of a retired life,” he says. It was easier said than done. Learning and adapting to new ways of functioning, and unlearning the corporate way of life was the challenge when Mal set up EM3 Agriservices, which he describes as “an Uber for farmers”. From: Executive Director & CEO of Escorts To: Founder, EM3 Agriservices, a pay-for-use service for farmers I It is a pay-for-use service for farmers, providing them help as and when they require—land preparation, sowing, transplanting, crop management, harvest and post-harvest farm management, charging the farmer on a per-acre basis. The IIM-C alumnus recalls, “From calling the shots, I entered a universe where I had to work from scratch to establish my startup. It is a different world altogether. I was fully grounded,” he says. A second career is not a new phenomenon; the difference is that the trend has picked up speed in India faster than an IMPS transaction. Army officers, who are well trained and disciplined, retire in their 50s to start security agencies, work as advisors to big companies, or like retired Colonel Hunny Bakshi, become consultants for Bollywood producers making war films. Real estate professionals start Airbnbs. IT professionals turn design architects. There is no dearth of choices when it comes to seconds at all levels, in all dimensions. From the world of high finance, with leadership roles at the World Bank and Citibank, private equity expert Dipak Bagla now rallies global changemakers for a net-zero world in his role as CEO of The Global Sustainability Alliance. Rajeev Talwar, who left the IAS to join real estate behemoth DLF, offers his networking skills and strategies, gained over three decades, to corporate clients. Like Robert de Niro in The Intern, you can be a temp in customer servicing or data processing. You could blend professions like Sanjay Arora, who continues to lead Shells Advertising Inc while engaging 276k Instagram followers with his delightful insights. While ageism persists, India Inc appears to have recognised the value of experience and skills that transcend the traditional 9-5 employment template. “Organisations have begun to see that senior talent brings a wealth of experience and stability as strategic advantages,” says 54-year-old Neeraj Sagar, the driving force behind Bengaluruheadquartered WisdomCircle. He was a senior partner and headhunter at global HR firm Egon Zehnder, where he recruited for top-tier compa- nies in a career spanning 15 years. WisdomCircle matches senior professionals with roles that leverage their lifetime of experience; from project management and finance to specialised sectors like textiles. In the last year and a half, WisdomCircle has bagged 200 organisations and 50,000 professionals as clients, proving that senior professionals want to continue working and that there’s a significant demand for skilled senior talent. The Indian workforce demographic is undergoing a course correction, which comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Pros: Seniors provide a fresh perspective gleaned from their long experience in formulating corporate strategy and administration. Older workers with valuable track records are quick to learn new skills because their existing knowledge already provides the base. Cons: “ survey by PwC found A that 40 per cent of older professionals feel they need additional training to keep up with the latest tech trends,” Kunal Sen, Partner and Practice Head—Technology at Executive Access India, points out. A study conducted by talent company Randstad found that 42 per cent of employees aged 55 and above encountered ageism at the workplace. Women were discriminated against the most: 42 per cent compared to 37 per cent men. Despite these hurdles, the Second Innings List reads like a Who’s Who of Indian business elites and adept professionals setting out on new ventures. There is SV Nathan, who recently announced his departure from Deloitte after an illustrious 19-year-tenure. He is turning entrepreneur to build India’s first HR digital global platform, designed to serve a diverse community of people managers, students, faculty and vendor partners. In posts on LinkedIn, Nathan has described this transition as a delightful experience filled with excitement. Then there is 52-yearold Shaifalika Panda. She started her entrepreneurial journey in 1995, importing high-end luxury “From calling the shots, I entered a universe where I had to work from scratch to establish my startup. It is a different world altogether.” Shaifalika Panda, 52 products—one of the first of its kind in India. Twelve years down the line, she changed gears. “I was drawn towards the developmental space and wanted to put my business management background to use. I sought to work on social impact at the grassroots and joined the CSR branch of Indian Metal and Ferro Alloys Ltd, Odisha, in 2011,” says Panda. Today under her leadership, the organisation has spread across five districts of the state, impacting over 400 villages. Vineet Nayar, former CEO of HCL Technologies, who led HCLT’s transformation from a $0.7 billion company in 2005 to a $4.7 billion global technology services powerhouse by 2013, set up the philanthropic organisation Sampark Foundation to drive large-scale innovation in education. Vipin Gupta, a 63-year-old who spent 35 years as a petroleum reservoir engineer, says, “It wasn’t my decision to leave; I touched 60 in 2021, and during the pandemic, many companies were downsizing,” He saw it as an opportunity rather than a setback. Arun Nanda, 75 From: Importing high-end luxury products into India To: Trustee and Founder CEO, Bansidhar and Ila Panda Foundation From: Chairman, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd To: Founder, Blossoming Hope, a service platform dedicated to senior citizens “I was drawn towards the developmental space and wanted to put my business management background to use. I sought to work on social impact at the grassroots.” Currently he wears many hats: , writer, blogger, life coach and mentor. “It’s important to be prepared. Problems appear when people are not prepared,” says Gupta. Problem-solving, the most valued talent in the corporate ecosystem, often comes from years of experience. In the 1980s Radha Daga was a travel agent, but soon she realised that working for someone else was not her cup of tea. “I wanted the freedom for self-expression, and being employed did not allow that,” she says. It was this desire that prompted her to come up with Chemise Indus Pvt Ltd in Chennai in 1988. That was, however, only the beginning. She had always wanted to do something around food. She finally realised the dream at 69 by founding Eze Eats, which introduced the concept of dehydrated meals. “I had the desire to be in the food business, but before that I had to save up money I did not want to depend . Vipin Gupta, 63 From: Petroleum reservoir engineer To: Writer, blogger, life coach and mentor “It wasn’t my decision to leave… but it’s important to be prepared for it, since problems appear when people are not prepared.” on anyone else for capital,” she says, adding that soon after its launch in 2012, it was noticed by Indigo airlines, and she has not looked back since. However, today’s dynamic work environment, with its evolving technology and new assessment methods, requires fresh solutions. Long-standing leaders may risk stagnation if they remain in the same roles. London School of Economics alumnus Ashish Guha, who moved from being an investment banker to chief of a global cement company in his 50s, recounts, “It was a chalk-andcheese move. While there was learning, relearning and unlearning, I also brought in a different perspective. That, I think, is the advantage or edge that most people like me have.” After almost a decade-long career in the cement industry he , returned to investment banking. “What you learn along the way never goes to waste. So, my stint in the cement sector added a completely divergent angle to my perspective when I re-entered investment banking,” says the 68-year-old, who believes any industry shift adds an edge to the CV which goes beyond a , lateral move. “This is happening more and more nowadays. People are cutting across all kinds of lines. It, of course, poses challenges. You have to “I couldn’t have found anything better to keep myself occupied than to give back to society.” Dinesh Arya, 75 From: VP - India, Broyden Gobal Executive Search To: Executive Director, AST Consultancy Services Private Limited “The satisfaction of using your knowledge and experience to make a difference is immeasurable. It keeps you young at heart and in the mind.” move out of your comfort zone,” says Guha, who believes that such shifts are a win-win for employers. They are getting people not only with more experience, but also a diverse portfolio. Diverse portfolios are a magnet to success, however you define that in this phase of life. Sonal Sood has done it all. She started her career as a banker in the US, before changing countries to move to India. While in India, and managing two small children, she decided to move from the fast-paced financial world and follow her Turn to page 2
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