Amit Chandra, Chairperson and Founder of Bain Capital’s India, recipient of Rotary Club of Bombay’s P.V. Gandhi Award for Excellence in Public Life

Amit Chandra, Chairperson and Founder of Bain Capital’s India, recipient of Rotary Club of Bombay’s P.V. Gandhi Award for Excellence in Public Life It is with deep gratitude and humility, on behalf of everyone who has contributed to my journey, that I accept this award, named aftera towering personality, Shri Pravin Chandra Gandhi.

By sheer law of averages, very few people in their lives get anopportunity to climb to a leadership position in any one industry.In that context, it is worth noting that Shri Gandhi was not justa pioneer but a leader in a whole range of them: banking, media,education, and sports. I feel particularly honoured to be a recipient of this award, therefore, in the name of someone who was decoratedwith a Padma Bhushan and in presence of someone who hasrecently received one.

On a lighter note, as an honorary memberof the elite Sanghi family fan club, seeing areasonably large number of them gatheredhere today makes this even a more memorablemoment for me. But there are friends here whoknow me really well from different phases of mylife, some from my days in helping build and runDSP Merrill Lynch before it merged with Bankof America, some from my days in founding and building Bain Capital, some from my roleson boards and NGOs, and then, apart fromthat, some who’ve seen me on my social sectorjourney.

But then there are a few like Bimal and Archana with whom I’ve shared a room andother unmentionable things for long periodsof time, and therefore they know me perhapsbetter than I know myself.

Therefore, the implication of all of this isthat I have to walk a really tight rope inbeing extremely honest as I share SEVENREFLECTIONS OF LEARNINGS I’ve hadfrom these different phases of my journey. Friends, my FIRST reflection is: Barring a few exceptionslike Elon Musk, IQ andtheoretical knowledge areperhaps highly overratedas predictors of long-termsuccess.From our early days be they in school or later incollege we are taught, as students, we have to simply crack our exams and that’s the way we will do well in life.

Even later on, we confuse people who are highly intelligent and can spew facts as those who aremost likely to succeed. In fact, once a person starts succeeding, we regard her to be highly intelligent. I would urge all of you to go back and think about your classmates be they from school, college or postgraduate days. Did all the toppers succeed or are some of those who became successful toppers? Importantly, are all the toppers happy and welladjusted as human beings? For those of you who  know me well, I’m a good example that one does not need to be very smart to do reasonably well in a field and in my case, actually in a few different fields. So, then, the question really is, what does it take to be successful? So, I move to my SECOND point. I think the most underrated character trait is actuallyperseverance and having a great attitude to one’swork.

Now, I’ve had the privilege to work withhundreds of leaders and entrepreneurs in my life,in some cases very closely as an investor or as aboard member, and I can say without doubt that acommon thread I’ve seen running between the onesmost successful is their incredible zest for work.

There will always be ups and downs, sometimes caused by our own mistakes and often byextraneous events. It is the ability of these extraordinary people to remain calm and positive at these times and mobilise people around them that I find a differentiating factor. We have a tendency to shelter our own children from all kinds of ups and downs when they’re growing up; we take the challenges upon ourselves. However, building this kind of resilience is an essential character trait that differentiates girls from women, boys from men. People get to see and admire success, but very often we forget that it is built on great amounts of perseverance against all odds. And, let me actually give you an example not from the business world, but the media world.

You know, AMITABH BACHCHAN IS A HOUSEHOLD NAME TODAY; everybody in this room knows him. On his graduation, his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor to see if there was an opening for him at Prithvi Theatre. But he didn’t have luck. After some false starts, he finally got a break in movies, after many years, actually. By the time he was 30, he built a reputation for being a flop actor. 85% of his movies were flops. He persevered and it was only in 1973 that he got a role in a movie made by my neighbour, which everybody else refused. It was called Zanjeer.

The rest is actually history and what followed was two decades of stardom that’s unmatched even today. However, there was a major setback, and he was forced to take a sabbatical because of a near-death accident. To make matters worse, on his comeback trail in 1996, he disastrously forayed into the corporate media world by setting up a company called ABCL. It wiped out his entire life’s savings and in 1999, it pushed him into bankruptcy to the extent that his house was nearly auctioned. Late Dhirubhai Ambani offered him a loan to bail him out, which gave him great hope, but he went to work with a vengeance. The turning point was when Rupert Murdoch offered him Kaun Banega Crorepati in 2000. In the post-KBC phase, both his earnings and his fame have outstripped those in all other prior phases of his life. So, in whatever we do, I do believe it is important for us to recognise and teach both ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids that success never comes quickly or easily. In fact, we will often be faced with failure. We should not hide it. Even with the exception of the IQ that I mentioned, Elon Musk, in fact, faces failure often. The difference is he publicly embraces it. What will matter is our perseverance and our commitment to succeed, being down but never out. As I move to the THIRD character trait that I reflect on, I know many will ask the question, how to build the spirit to persevere? What creates that drive to work hard? Friends, I believe the answer to this lies in finding and having a sense of purpose. It is very difficult to get up every morning and push yourself to fight unless you want to do something extraordinary or something you really love. I learned that having some amount of social consciousness – taking it beyond the self – woven into it makes it much easier.

And there is no better place to give this example from than this very building, 120 years old, built by Jamshedji Tata. JAMSHEDJI TATA WAS PERHAPS THE GREATEST INDIAN ENTREPRENEUR WHO’S EVER LIVED and perhaps the greatest Indian philanthropist and one of the greatest philanthropists the world has ever seen. But was he born rich? Did he have a family with great connections? No. He was a preacher’s son. And then, in an era where the British worked actively to deny each Indian the opportunity to build enterprises, Jamshedji had a powerful purpose.

He wanted to build businesses which fought this very norm, making him the atmanirbhar Indian of pre-Independence era. During his life, he laid the foundations of iconic businesses like Tata Steel, Indian hotels, Tata Power, a leading textile company and the Indian Institute of Science, the highest rated educational institute in Asia. Importantly, Jamshedji believed that community is the very purpose of the existence of business and designed his businesses to reflect that philosophy. Be it the radical changes in how his textile company engaged with workers at a time when mill workers were exploited or the way in which Tata Steel integrated communities around it and Jamshedpur was born. He was also a global pioneer in ensuring that the wealth he created from his extraordinary work completely went back to serve society via the Tata Trust structure. I was one of the privileged few to have been custodians of his wealth. We have so much to learn from studying his life closely even today.

The FOURTH character trait is steadily going into shortage today over the past few decades, having a good sense, a set of values or integrity.  The legendary investor, Warren Buffett says integrity is the most important trait he looks for in his new hires. As a society, we need to ask ourselves whether we respect integrity or reward those who don’t espouse good values. At the minimum, I personally believe that we should be clear that cutting corners on this is not great as an indicator of success in the long run. I was in my early 20s when I joined DSP Merrill Lynch and my mentor, Hemendrabhai Kothari – some of you may know him – pulled me into his cabin and asked me, what is the most valuable thing you possess? Seeing me perplexed, he quickly answered, it’s your sleep. Knowing I was confused, he explained that we work in finance where temptation is easy, lots of money is at stake, and I could easily take shortcuts for my benefit or the business’s benefit. He however stressed that there should be no shortcuts to success. The most important thing in life is to be able to sleep well every night with a clear conscience. That very first lesson he gave me of many has always stayed with me. One of the reasons for DSP’s extraordinary success and market share was because our clients saw this value in its leadership team. Friends, I had the privilege of being a trustee of the Tata Trust and a board member of Tata Sons for a long time. Their history has not been without challenges, and I was even a part of a very difficult phase of its history. However, they have only emerged from all of that stronger. There is not one large business house created over a century ago that still stands as a leader, not just in India but in Asia; the Tatas are an exception. The reason I believe this to be the case is because they endure given their deep value system and that sets them apart from everybody else. Let me now talk about the FIFTH character trait that I believe is not just critical to success, but to a happy life and building enduring relationships. Some of you may be familiar with the famous and long-running Harvard happiness study that looks closely at the drivers of happiness in individuals and how they change over time. The study shows that it is actually nurturing close and happy relationships, much more than money or fame, that keeps people happy throughout their lives. We now know that if we want to leave this world happy, what we have to start doing today. Yet, I know that most of us will focus on what matters much less. I frankly consider myself truly blessed. I was not born into a well-todo family, but it was one that loved and nurtured me enormously. It provided me with the possibility of accessing education well beyond our means. However, as I look back at the past 55 years of my life, I think apart from the values I inherited from my parents, I’ve had the good fortune of bringing, of building extraordinary relationships in each and every phase of my life. Today, I count a number of close friends from my school days, my college days, the days I came back from the US and started building my career. Many of these people with whom Archana and I have travelled, we knew before any label of success or wealth was put on us. And most of them will be with us in times of pain. You might have noticed, I didn’t mention close friends from the corporate world. The fact is, I have very few. I have great relationships in the corporate world, ones built on trust, honesty, and excellence, but I have always believed that corporate networking in the form that we think about it, wining and dining is a highly overrated concept. That’s why I don’t join any clubs. My Guru Hemendrabhai used to actually wonder if he would ever need to sign any entertainment bills for me. I would joke with him because I don’t drink, eat non-veg or play golf; so why would clients want to go out with someone as boring as me? Within the realm of relationships, I would like to pass on one piece of advice my brother-inlaw, Nitin Nohria, who was the Dean of Harvard Business School, gave me 29 years ago. He told me, we don’t get to choose the families we are born into, but the most important decisions we make in our lives are two: the choice of life partner and that of close friends. I have fully seen this principal work both positively and negatively and I urge everyone who cares to listen to be very thoughtful about these two decisions in our lives. I personally consider my biggest blessing to have had someone smarter, stronger, wiser, a lot better looking than me, Archana, as my life’s partner as well as the closest friend that I have. Frankly, it has been the equivalent of winning the Maharashtra Rajya Lottery Bumper draw not once but twice. And, you know, she made that decision to marry me when I was a pauper, a nobody in banking. So, if that was not enough, I think a bigger blessing has come in the form of our lovely daughter Anika who, as she grows, is becoming more of a friend than a child, an incredible companion to us on this journey, someone who we greatly enjoy seeing grow into a wonderful, thoughtful human being. As I conclude, I must talk about my last two reflections. The SIXTH is: We must learn to treat life as much as a journey, as a destination. Let me explain this a little bit. Every morning, I have a bad habit that before I get out of bed, I look at my phone to see if there are any important overnight messages. As I opened my phone today, I was, you know, saddened and shocked to read a message from my sister in Boston about a good friend of her family who suddenly passed away in a car crash. My mind flash-backed to my niece’s wedding celebrations in Udaipur in December where she and her husband had come down from Texas and we all had a lovely time. She was one of the most successful and celebrated women in business in the US, married to one of the most successful venture capitalists in the world, and she went quickly and too soon. It made me think once again about the fragility of life. In a flash, it was all gone. We are all so focussed on our goals that we forget about the moment. Does our child need us? Can I help a friend who has reached out? Does my body need rest? Is my mother having a good day? Even if I’m successful, am I enjoying what I’m doing, or do I need another purpose? All of this to me is answering the question, are we fairly balanced in focussing on our journey as much as we are on our destination? Often if we are just destination focussed, when we reach the station, it might be empty. Or we might not feel the high that we thought we would when we get there. I say this from experience, my goal was to run the country’s most successful investment bank by the time I was 40. I ran it when I was 34. When I got there, I felt completely empty, and I decided to quit. I urge you all to reflect on this as you lead your own lives and guide your loved ones. I would like to end with perhaps MY FAVOURITE REFLECTION. The most selfish route to becoming happy is to inculcate a deep sense of generosity and kindness in our lives. As a follower of Guru Nanak, I deeply believe in the principle of kirat karo vandd chhako, which is to work hard and honestly but give back generously. At some point in our life about 15 years ago, we decided to cap our material needs and give away everything else that we make. We decided we will stay in the house that we lived in. We would not compete with any of the peers who were running companies. And in virtually every dimension we decided we wanted to put a full stop. And I feel really blessed that we made that decision. Since then, we have already donated a multiple of our current savings and a larger multiple of our annual savings, but we feel richer than ever. We may have capped our needs, but we have never capped our desire to be fulfilled. We still have our fun holidays. We lead a decent life by most standards. But we draw extraordinary happiness from the success of tens of thousands of students who have graduated from universities we have built, schools we have seed funded, the two hospitals we have built, the transformation we see in the millions of lives of villagers across five states that we have done work in water security. We have realised that it is not about giving but about receiving. I think we have done three simple things. We have not let society define us. Second, we have invested in experiences both with close friends and families since those stay longer with us. And third, early in our journey, we inculcated a giving habit, be it time or money, which has made us feel more fulfilled in our lives. Friends, I’ve tried my best to openly share my reflections from Archana and my journey. I hope some of you will find it helpful as you think of your own. I think this is the longest I’ve spoken in the presence of Archana. So let me quickly conclude by thanking the Club again for this honour. I am deeply grateful for the blessings of Vaheguru and for the unconditional support and love provided by her, members of my family, my mentors and my closest friends, without whom someone as ordinary as me would not be where I am. As we Punjabis do, I would like to conclude by praying for what we call Sarbat da bhala, that is, may Vaheguru’s blessings be upon us all, may everyone prosper. Namaste. ROTARIANS ASK What is the legacy you would like to leave behind? And what would you like us to do to fulfill some of the things that you have talked about? I don’t think I lead a full life; I am always deeply anxious, deeply dissatisfied. And part of that is what keeps me going and thinking about how to keep doing something, pushing myself every day. I think, unless you have that anxiety, I personally believe that you can’t do more. And if I felt satisfied, I could have, you know, two of us made enough money 15 years ago that we could have bought a house somewhere and lived the life that many people dream of. But I think I do believe that having that sense of anxiety, especially when you look around, you travel – and you don’t even need to travel, if you just visit any place five kilometres from wherever we live – and you see the condition of how 99% of the rest of India lives, it’s very easy to build that sense of anxiety. Answering the second part of your question, I feel that if there is one thing that each one of us needs to think about – whether Rotarians or Lions or any other club or Indians in general – it is, what will be our purpose and what more can we do with our lives to impact the lives of others? As Rumi said, you think that you’re doing it to change others, but you will change your own lives. There is so much to be done; It is my belief that this is the land of 1.3 billion opportunities.Only 100 million people lead a decent life in this country, we are a part of that 100 million. So, we can ask ourselves everyday if there’s something more to do and, are we doing it to our full potential or not? Can you share a little more about your philosophy of giving? So, there are two separate parts to this which is how much do we give and why do we do that, and the second is how do we give? I think there are two very distinct aspects. On how much we give, I think that’s a deeply personal decision. Let me step back, I think we are inspired by two people a lot. One is the teachings of Guru Nanak, which is Kirat karna; I talked about that in my speech. And the other is the life and journey of an extraordinary philanthropist, well, two philanthropists: Jamshedji Tata and an Irish American called Chuck Feeney, who we all know from his work which was duty-free stores. He made US$8 billion from that business and gave away 99.9% of it. We had the privilege of spending time with him. With that donation, he changed the education system of Ireland, the healthcare system of Vietnam, AIDS as we know it in South Africa, Cornell University exists in the shape it exists today because of him. So, it really amazed us how one person can do it and none of us know him because he did most of this anonymously. So, in my mind there are examples in the world. We know about great celebrities, you know, but we don’t know about extraordinary people like this because we don’t celebrate them, right? But I do believe that we have an opportunity in our lives to decide what we want to do, and we should do it for ourselves. We don’t need to do it for anyone else. And, so, our philosophy has been to do what you want to do and think is right, you decide how much you need, what you think you need, and what’s enough. And we defined long back what’s enough for us. Once you define what’s enough for you, it becomes very easy to give away the rest, right? That’s what we did many years ago. We defined what’s enough, and after that it has been a very easy journey. We are very focussed on giving highly efficiently in an impactful manner. And so, the mission of our work is transformation at scale and that requires a lot of time, it requires tools, it requires data, it requires research, it requires advocacy. And so, a lot of the work we do – our foundation is not very far away from here at Kalaghoda – we get engaged with causes, we go deeply. We don’t write cheques; we try to build movements. We try to make sure that the work we do, we become irrelevant in 10 to 15 years of engaging with the cause, because the worst form of giving is charity. When you do charity, you are essentially making  the recipient dependent on your giving for a lifetime. We are very clear that our engagement with them within a finite period of time. And so that is the ethos with which we engage with communities. We also make sure that when we engage with communities, we do so with dignity, with respect, they have equity in the work that we engage with them on. So, all of this requires a very different approach, and that’s the work we’ve been doing for the last 15, 20 years. How much have spirituality and philosophy made you what you are today? How much do you give importance to spirituality and the philosophies that you follow? I think spirituality saved me, to be honest with you. It was my first turning point in all of this when I was completely bereft of answers at the peak of my career as a banker. I felt completely empty and directionless. I went to my corporate guru, Hemendra Kothari, and I told him, I feel like I don’t know what’s happening to me. I was on virtually the cover page of every business magazine in the country. I used to regularly come on the cover page of The Economic Times. And yet I would come home, and I would be unhappy… I couldn’t figure out what was going on. The first thing I did, under the advice of Vallabh Bhansali and Anu Aga, was to go and do Vipassana. The first time, I spent 10-12 days by myself. It was very helpful because even now I believe that spending time by yourself to reflect on things that you’re going through and thinking is very, very important. So that, in my mind, was my first experience with something spiritual. My second experience with something spiritual which has stayed deeply with me for the last 15-20 years is when I started reading the Granth Sahib. I’m a Hindu, you know, but for some reason I got very inspired by the philosophy of Guru Nanak. I went at it philosophically, not religiously. Even now I practise it more philosophically than religiously. But I do believe I’m deeply spiritual in my practice. I derive a lot of my strength from spirituality. I do believe it’s a great pillar that each one of us can have in our lives.