Saturday, February 25, 2023

Let’s Celebrate the Rise of the Turban

 The White House has announced that Mr. Ajay Banga, former CEO of Mastercard is to appointed as the next President of the World Bank. The news can be found at:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/23/president-biden-announces-u-s-nomination-of-ajay-banga-to-lead-world-bank/

Assuming he gets the job, Mr. Banga is going to be making history on several fronts. The most obvious point is that Mr. Banga will be the first Sikh and first person born and raised outside Europe or America to head an international development organisation. Mr. Banga is an American citizen, thus he fits the traditional understanding that President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is always a European while the President of the World Bank is always an American. However, Mr. Banga was born in India and educated in India (he is an alumni of IIM Ahmedabad and St Stephen’s College in Delhi), thus he brings the experiences of the “recipient” experiences of development aid to the table.

These are the superficial reasons to celebrate the nomination of Mr. Banga to the World Bank Presidency. The first reason to celebrate his rise have to do with the objections to Mr. Banga’s nomination. The main complaint against Mr. Banga’s appointment is the fact that he’s a Wall Street Insider. Any complaints about his skin tone have been absent.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/activists-slam-bidens-pick-ajay-banga-wall-street-insider-for-world-bank-3811259

The second point about Mr. Banga’s appointment is the fact that his story is the story international talent. Mr. Banga was born and educated in India. However, he chose to make his remarkable career in the USA. Mr. Banga, like Ms. Indra Nooyi, former CEO of Pepsico, is part of a trend of Indian educated people who have found greater opportunities elsewhere and moved and settled in the places where the opportunities are.

 


Copyright – Brunswick

If you look at the story of the likes and Mr. Banga and Ms. Nooyi, you’ll understand that the debate about “stayers” and “quitters” is, to put it mildly, a silly one. As noble as patriotic sentiments of building your nation may sound, nobody is going to hang around if they believe that they are not getting anywhere nor can you expect them to stay if someone or somewhere else offers them greater prospects in life. We may complain about our expat population being filled with people who couldn’t make it in their native lands. However, we forget that whilst they may not have made it in their home lands, they found places where they could make it.

The lesson here is that you need to create opportunities for people to grow if you want them to stay. There’s no point is telling them that you gave them education and therefore they need to stay if they believe that they’re not going to advance where you are.

It’s not that Mr. Banga and Ms. Nooyi have abandoned India. At the 2013 IIMPact symposium (As a matter of disclosure, I worked on the publicity for the event – my last great working achievement) that was hosted in Singapore, Mr. Banga, made a point to tell his fellow IIM Alumni that they needed to do something for India. Mr. Banga is an active member of the America India Foundation (AIF), which works to better the lives of India’s multitude of underprivileged.

Countries that want to grow need to produce people like Mr. Banga. They need to allow people like him to have opportunities to grow if they want them to stay and they also need to provide emotional connections so that if they leave but succeed elsewhere, they will be willing to contribute to you.

In the modern world, you need to accept that people will move around. Gone are the days when people were expected to stay forever out of gratitude. The skill that countries and corporations need to master is relationship building with their people – give them reasons and opportunities to grow and when they leave, give them a reason to find ways to continue contributing to your wellbeing.  

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Maira Gall