24.00 Suresh Narayanan on Nestle India's turnaround and building a resilient culture

Episode 257,   Feb 16, 2018, 07:24 AM

GUEST

Suresh Narayanan is the Chairman and MD of Nestle India Limited (which recently crossed INR 10,000 Crores for the first time after about a century of operating in India). Suresh is often dubbed as a turnaround leader given what he has accomplished in various markets - Handling the operations in Singapore during the 2008 financial crisis, Leadership in Egypt, Libya and Sudan during the Arab Spring around 2011, turning around Maggi in 2015 when the company had taken a significant hit on the P&L and the Balance Sheet.

In our conversation, Suresh spoke about how his childhood years, especially the years at Rishi Valley School have given him the foundation and the attitudes that have helped him through the journey. He spoke about how he made some of his early career choices including the decision to join Hindustan Unilever Limited, while he was actually preparing himself for the IAS. He also discussed how he has transitioned effectively from one context to another and his perspectives on what it takes to settle in well in a new environment. He spent time discussing how he specifically turned around the fortunes at Nestle when he took charge in 2015 and breaks down the notion of building resilience as an individual and in the team. Finally, he also talks about how Marketing as a function is evolving with the emergence of Digital.

Published in Feb 2018.

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HOST

Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nuances of the context and then armed with the mutual trust and understanding of the context, strives to be of value as a (behind the scenes and discreet) Coach / Sounding Board for their journeys. LinkedIn profile here

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Play to Potential podcast started in Dec 2016 and features conversations around three broad themes - Leadership, Transitions and Careers. Guests include leading Business Leaders from Corporate India, Global Thinkers (several Thinkers 50 listers and Ivy League Professors), Authors, Coaches, Sports(wo)men, Artists and other individuals who have strived towards excellence. 

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OTHER GUESTS

1.Vijay Amritraj 2.Amish Tripathi 3.Raghu Raman 4.Papa CJ 5.Kartik Hosanagar 6.Ravi Venkatesan 7.Abhijit Bhaduri 8.Viren Rasquinha 9.Prakash Iyer 10.Avnish Bajaj 11.Nandan Nilekani 12.Atul Kasbekar 13.Karthik Reddy 14.Pramath Sinha 15.Vedika Bhandarkar 16.Vinita Bali 17.Zia Mody 18.Rama Bijapurkar 19.Dheeraj Pandey 20.Anu Madgavkar 21.Vishy Anand 22. Meher Pudumjee 23.KV Shridhar (Pops) 24.Suresh Naraynan 25.Devdutt Pattanaik 26.Jay Panda 27.Amit Chandra 28.Chandramouli Venkatesan 29.Roopa Kudva 30.Vinay Sitapati 31.Neera Nundy.

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