Category: Career/skills

Ravi Mattu How does a manager explain this?

October 19, 2009 5:26 pm by Ravi Mattu

The news that Raj Rajarathnam, head of hedge fund Galleon, has been arrested for insider trading opens up all sorts of interesting issues. The use of wire taps to track white collar crime is reminiscent of tracking down mobsters, the Sri Lankan government’s claims that he had ties to Tamil separatists and Mr Rajarathnam’s motivation – in the book New Investment Superstars, he said: “After awhile, money is not the motivation. I want to win every time. Taking calculated risks gets my adrenaline pumping.” – and his prominent position in the philanthropic organisations in New York, and so on.

What struck me, is that he planned to be in the office this morning to explain this all to staff. Managers face all sorts of communication challenges and this surely has to be among the toughest, a delicate balance of trying to maintain a level of credibility as the company leader but also, presumably, trying to make sure the people in the business keep the business going, all against the background of a handcuffed Mr Rajaratnam being escorted by FBI agents on the front page of most major newspapers.

UPDATE: Ok, so I guess you simply protest your innocence.

Posted in Career/skills, Communication, Finance, Leadership, Management |

Ravi Mattu The latest ranking of executive MBAs

October 19, 2009 5:00 am by Ravi Mattu

In today’s paper, check out our latest ranking of executive MBAS. As you will see, the trend for success seems to be those programmes that are taught in multiple locations. In the age of globalisation, that has to make sense.

Posted in B-schools, Career/skills |

Ravi Mattu Further reading

October 5, 2009 6:02 pm by Ravi Mattu
  • A husband and wife switch jobs for two weeks – Huband takes become the stay-at-home parent, wife takes over his job as an editor of Slate, the online magazine. Not exactly the craziest switch in the world; Susan Burton is a former editor at Harper’s Magazine (declaration: I was an intern at the magazine at the time when Susan was an editor there) but still could prove an intriguing experiment. At the very least, it should be a good read.
  • David Hockney’s iPhone passion – If I was Apple, I’m not sure I could have come up with a better advertisement of just how useful the iPhone is for some people. This has to take the mobile phone as utility to a new level. The piece includes examples of work he’s created on the phone
  • The price of being gay - The authors admit that this isn’t an exact science but…
  • Parental benefits for the self-employed – I’m Canadian and a parent and I know lots of people who might break out and do their own thing if not for the need to keep their benefits, including maternity or paterntiy pay. Does this hold back business and entrepreneurship?
  • France Telecom makes changes at the top in wake of scandal of suicides – a story that still has yet to be resolved. Here’s the FT’s take, the story in Les Echos, Liberation and Le Figaro
Posted in Career/skills, Community, Consumers, Creativity, Innovation/tech, Technology |

Ravi Mattu Further reading

September 15, 2009 6:30 pm by Ravi Mattu
Posted in Career/skills, Management |

Ravi Mattu The new man from the Pru

September 11, 2009 11:57 am by Ravi Mattu

If you haven’t read it already, take a look at today’s fascinating interview with Tidjane Thiam, the CEO-elect of Prudential. If you have the time, it is well worth reading the full transcript of the interview.

There are all sorts of reason why the 46-year-old’s ascent to the top of the one of the world’s biggest life assurers is so interesting, not least the fact that he is the first black person to head a FTSE 100 company.

But Mr Thiam’s professional experience is also a bit unconventional for a chief executive for a City of London company. After an early career as a consultant for McKinsey in Paris, he became an independent adviser to the government of the Ivory Coast and, later, minister for development. Following a coup, he was briefly detained and then offered the position of chief of staff to the military government. He chose instead to return to McKinsey – don’t know of many consultants who have had to make such a choice – and n 2002, he was headhunted by Aviva to become its strategy director before heading the company’s continental European operations. He became finance director of Prudential in March last year and was appointed chief executive in March of this year.

From a management point of view, he offers some very revealing insights about how his time in Africa impacted (i.e. didn’t) his career in Europe:

Continue reading: “The new man from the Pru”

Posted in Career/skills, Leadership, Management |

Ravi Mattu Further reading

September 9, 2009 6:08 pm by Ravi Mattu
  • ‘Ill’ pilots ground Jet Airways – hundreds of flights are cancelled at India’s second-biggest airline when hundreds of pilots in a labour dispute with the company resort to a “simulated a strike” by calling in sick
  • How Brian Epstein made The Beatles famous – the business genius who turned the group into a global, commercial phenomenon – all before he was 32 years old
  • Which checkout lane is fastest? – don’t know how definitive this is, but it’s a question that’s always vexed me and, evidently, many others too. I’m also glad that it has confirmed my suspicion that the express lane is a red herring (Hat tip: The Browser)
  • Families are feeling stress of economic crisis – I knew it! My highlight of this study: increasing incivility at work (defined as “backstabbing”, “sucking up” and “politicking”) as people try to save their jobs. Ouch.
Posted in Career/skills, Hard times, Management |

Ravi Mattu A ‘shocking disparity’ in women’s pay

September 7, 2009 10:50 pm by Ravi Mattu

I’m coming a bit late to this but just as our debate on women in the boardroom generated a fair bit of heated discussion a few weeks ago, today’s report that women in the the UK’s financial industry suffer from a “shocking disparity” in performance related pay (many receive 80 per cent less than male colleagues) has rightly been getting a lot of attention.

If the report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission is accurate, the results are difficult to swallow. Not only is the pay gap is one of the widest in the UK economy and could be being entrenched by recruitment patterns, an issue we take to task in an editorial in today’s paper.

Posted in Career/skills, Corporate culture, Finance, Leadership, Management |

Ravi Mattu Picks of the week

September 4, 2009 11:56 am by Ravi Mattu

A few interesting stories I have seen in the past few days.

  • John Moulton resigns from Alchemy Partners, the private equity group – many in the industry may not have liked that he was so outspoken but I actually think his ability to communicate openly did the industry a great service. Private equity has often been poorly understood for such and many in the wider public had little idea what it did. By having someone speak publicly about it, he humanised a big industry. But then, as a journalist, I suppose I would say that. NB: Do read his remarkably candid letter to investors.
  • Ikea Beijing – more as theme park than store – My three-year old nephew loves Ikea. It’s his favourite place to hang out and eat (he loves the meatballs). Apparently, he’s not alone. At the company’s Beijing store, “thousands” go there for “fun” and, on occasion, even to catch a nap in one of the beds on display. (Hat tip: First Drafts, the blog for Prospect magazine)
  • How Merkel’s attempt to save Opel went awry – interesting essay on the machinations behind Angela Merkel’s efforts to steer the sale of Opel. A tale of how domestic and international politics and business mix in troubled times – and why things don’t always go according to plan.
  • Pedigree, the dog food maker, promotes dog adoption through a children’s book – Ad agency TBWA/London publishes a children’s book encouraging kids to be dog lovers. Aren’t there rules about marketing to children? And surely cute dogs do a better job of wanting kids to have them then a children’s book.
  • The Washington Redskins sue a fan who goes bankrupt- Thought the headline was a bit sensationalist, but it is true that loyal sports fans always see themselves as more than mere consumers; they are part of a community which means they see their investment as more than financial (a topic I discussed in ‘Why Communities Matter’ a few weeks ago). In the era when sports is big business, is this a position that can be reconciled with reality? Or is it an illusion clubs are willing to encourage in order to keep fans on side?
Posted in Brand management, Career/skills, Community, Hard times, Leadership, Management, Marketing/sales |

Ravi Mattu Life in a downturn

September 3, 2009 5:20 pm by Ravi Mattu

A couple of stories on FT.com highlight some of the more difficult aspects of life in a downturn.

Our ongoing series “Trading places: Migration in a crisis” is a fascinating, if slightly depressing look, at how the downturn is affecting migrant workers for a number of different communities across the world: Japenese-Brazilians who are returning to Brazil after years in Japan; Mexican labourers who have lost their jobs in the US and are unable to remit money to their families; migrants in China’s Pearl River Delta who are being offered school places to stay; and for Nigeria, a “brain gain” as emigrants are coming home.

Another story that has been getting a lot of recent attention has been the decision by BT to rethink its graduate recruitment policies by no longer particpating in the annual “milk round” of UK university job fairs (see Stefan’s column in the post below). My colleague Andrew Hill offers the latest take on the debate by assessing the value of trainees (and, as he declares, he too is a former trainee, so he knows what he’s talking about).

Posted in Career/skills, Hard times, Leadership, Management |

Ravi Mattu Are women a help or a hindrance in the boardroom?

August 6, 2009 7:41 pm by Ravi Mattu

I can’t claim to know the answer – is it really knowable? – but there certainly seem to be divergent views on the issue.

New research suggests more women on the board can improve governance but has a negative effect on profitability. In the words of Daniel Ferreira of the London School of Economics, one of the report’s authors: “This is a complicated picture.”

That may well qualify for understatement of the day but a few of recent pieces highlight just how complicated – and current – the issue is.

In today’s Lombard column, Andrew Hill points out that the authors are not coming out against female directors but do “warn that about forcing the issue with quotas, Norwegian-style, and then expecting automatic improvements in performance”.

A few weeks ago, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, a consultant and co-author of a book called Why Women Mean Business, wrote: “There is a convincing business case for designing organisations that attract and retain women to the top.” Further, she argued, “having a greater proportion of women in decision-making roles improves business performance and profitability”.

A few weeks later, our own Lucy Kellaway, who also happens to be a non-executive director, took a different view, describing the so-called “asset-to-oestrogen” ratio as “total twaddle”.

Who’s right? Comments welcome.

Posted in Career/skills, Corporate culture, Leadership, Management, Strategy/ops |
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About the authors

Stefan Stern writes a column on Tuesdays on management. He is winner of the 2010 Towers Watson award for excellence in HR journalism, and has previously won awards from the Work Foundation and the Management Consultancies Association.

Ravi Mattu is the editor of Business Life, the FT's management features section, and a former editor of the Mastering Management series. He joined the FT in 2000 from Prospect magazine

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