Indians around the world have been cheering. The
Overseas Indian Community now claims yet another CEO of a top technology
company with the elevation of Parag Agrawal, who replaced Jack Dorsey as CEO of
Twitter.
At the age of 37, Mr. Agrawal joins a distinguished list
of people of Indian origin who have become big time CEOs, like Sundar Pichai of
Alphabet, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Shantanu Narayan at Adobe, Indra Nooyi of
Pepsico and Ajay Banga of Mastercard. A more comprehensive list of people of
Indian Origin who have become CEOs of international companies can be found at:
https://www.viralindiandiary.com/indian-ceos-international-companies-networth/
Mr. Agrawal’s elevation to the top job at Twitter has
made management theorist excited. Articles about how Indians, who only make up
some six percent of Silicon Valley, managed to get a “disproportionate” share
of the top jobs around have bene popping up. The following article from the BBC
is an example:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59457015
Mr. Agrawal’s elevation has been a good moral booster
for “Brand India,” “Brand IIM” and “Brand IIT,” which for my personal branding,
was great, since two of my career highlights came from serving “Brand IIM” and “Brand
IIT.” Working for the respective alumni associations was great for “shoulder
rubbing.”
However, one has to ask, how does the elevation of Mr.
Agrawal benefit anyone else besides himself and Twitter. This was the question
raised by Wion News (which is a channel, I don’t often watch based on the fact
that their views tend to border on being a little Indian Jingoistic.).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K37cElKncI8
There were two key points made. Firstly, is the fact
that the loyalty of a CEO of a Company is not to the country of his birth but to
his shareholders wherever they may be. The
Wion report talked about how Google led by Indian born and educated Sundar
Pichai was currently fighting court cases in India. Mr. Pichai’s duty is not to
make India prosperous but to ensure his shareholders in America got the best
returns possible.
This leads to the second point raised, which was the
fact that China, which produced none of Silicon Valley’s CEOs, has produced far
more tech unicorns (a start-up with a valuation of USD one billion). It goes without
saying that a technology unicorn in a country does more to create wealth in
that particular country than having person born in a country become CEO of a
big company in another country.
If you take these points further, it would seem that
the key advantage that China has over India is the fact that its “talent” wants
to come back. The Chinese with brains and drive move back to China to do
things. There was a time when the wealthiest Chinese were people like Li Ka
Shing of Hong Kong and Ng Teng Fong from Singapore, who moved outside of China
and bought land the most expensive real estate markets. Today, the wealthiest
Chinese are people like Jack Ma and Ma Huateng of Alibaba and Tencent, who are
technology people, creating new ways for people in China to do things.
With notable exceptions like NR. Narayana Murthi of Infosys
(who was working in India before he started Infosys), Azim Premji of Wipro (who
had to cut his studies at Stanford when his father died) and Arun Jain of IntellectDesign Arena (who was offered a job at Wang Laboratories in the USA but turned
it down), the Indians who have brains, prefer to stay outside of India.
One of China’s great tricks in its rise was to harness
the Chinese diaspora. Initial foreign investment and expertise came from Chinese
origin businessmen in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Say what you like about the
Communist Government in China but making China welcome to Chinese born outside
of China was strategically sound.
Can India do the same. The Indian diaspora is not just
rich in funds but also in expertise. Indian have thrived in America and Europe
as well as remote markets like Africa and the Middle East. However, while you
have the odd Arun Jain of Intellect Design Arena, India has yet to create an
emotional bond with its diaspora the way China did. I think of a young Indian
executive in a multinational IT firm who said “I DON’T want to go back to
India,” when I suggested that he could have a good life earning in USD but
living in India (The Company he worked for had been bought out by a US based Company).
As much as the Immigration and Check Point Authority
(ICA) may not like to admit it, India does provide quite a few lessons, namely
in the fact that we have to question if our immigration policies are making it
such that talented Singaporeans don’t want to stay and build things in
Singapore.
The main debate on immigration in Singapore has been
about attracting talent, including members of the Indian diaspora. The
government argues that we need “foreign talent,” to invest in Singapore and to create
value-creating jobs for Singaporeans. The people on the ground complain that
people from elsewhere “steal” jobs from the locals.
I will avoid getting into the nitty gritty of that
debate since everyone else does so. In principle, I don’t disagree with being
open to talent from elsewhere. As a small trade dependent nation, we cannot
afford to shut our doors and let’s face it, we need to measure ourselves against
“best in the world” rather than “best in Singapore.”
However, we need to ask if we’re going all out to get “foreign”
talent at the expense of driving away local talent. Let’s take a look at what
happens in the field of music. Singapore goes out of its way to attract
musicians from all over the world as part of our efforts to be a “global city.”
We spent lots of money to build a “world class” facility in the shape of the Esplanade
and we lose money so that we can have great cultural events and get great
musicians from elsewhere to play here.
Yet, what did we do when we produced one classical pianist
that the rest of the world seems to value? We threatened to lock him up for not
serving his national service even though he left Singapore as a child. Think
about it, you can listen to Melvyn Tan play anywhere in the world – except in
Singapore.
Look what happened with Ben Davis and Harry Britwistle,
who were talented enough to be selected to play in English Premier League Clubs.
They had to give up their citizenship to pursue their dreams. It was National
Service and keep the passport, by which then they would be of no use to the
clubs that selected them, or never to set foot in Singapore and pursue the
dream. It should be no surprise which path they chose.
Whilst we deny talented Singaporeans the chance to
play in the English Premier league or any of the top European leagues, we’re
more than happy to spend money bringing those teams to Singapore:
Nothing wrong with attracting talented foreigners but
it should not be at the expense of our local budding talents. We have some
340,000 Singaporeans living overseas. Many of them are highly educated and
talented people, who have left for a variety of reasons. A list of “Overseas”
Singaporeans can be found at the following link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Singaporean
Many of have taken different nationalities and I can
understand that. Unlike, say the USA, which is huge, there are limits in
Singapore’s limited geographical space. However, shouldn’t we be cultivating
links with them – the people who are already here rather than trying to get
more people from elsewhere?
It’s this simple. In business, they say its easier to
get more business from an existing customer than to look for a new one. If you
apply that logic, it’s surely easier and cheaper to get a talented Singaporeans
to work for Singapore than to spend so much money to get people from elsewhere
to work for Singapore. Sounds simple to me, if only it were so for our policy
makers.
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