Aditya Birla Group was founded in 1857 at Pilani, Rajasthan. In 162 years of rich legacy, the conglomerate ventured into different sectors - manufacturing, textile, cement, finance, insurance, insulators, telecommunications and agriculture. Just name it and you will find their presence.
A ~45bn multinational company operating in 34 countries over 5 continents, the number itself speaks about the success the group has relished. Achievement of this scale was possible only through sheer hard work of the team working in Aditya Birla Group.
One of the key figures, Dr. Santrupt Mishra is a person who has defined HR technology, talent and the world of new work. He is associated with Aditya Birla group from over 23 years.
Dr. Mishra joined the company as Vice President of Human Resources department and then made his way through to become the Director, Global H.R. and CEO of Carbon Black Business at Aditya Birla Group. The transition from an HR to CEO role required widening of the 70 degrees’ business knowledge to 360 degrees.
According to him, the strategy was simple- “if you believe that asking people for help is not a weakness but a sign of internal security then you can leverage your ecosystem in a far better way”. Being at such a high position never stopped him from asking for help, whenever required. He asked the Chief Learning Officer from the Group to be his coach, a retired CFO from a Group company to be his guru and also senior business leaders to guide him. Today, he is one of the most successful CEO around.
I would like to share an incident which happened during my internship at a travel and hospitality company. I needed some help with my accent as I had to make international calls for carrying out my duties. My seniors helped me with the same, due to which I was able to successfully carry out my responsibilities.
The mantra given by Dr. Santrupt has become my ultimate policy in life – Never ever shy away while asking for help.
How you overcame challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?
It was during my graduation year when I decided to launch a finance festival - first of its kind in the college, which till that time had a management and cultural fest. As the Head of Marketing department, I was responsible to head a team of 15 members in order to obtain corporate sponsorships for Insight, onboarding the likes of BSE, IIFL and Dena Bank. This proved to be an on-the-job learning lesson while enhancing my negotiation and convincing skills.
However, this journey was not as simple as it might sound. Having no technical knowledge and prior experience in organizing any kind of fest, I had to face challenges in building the brand value of the fest, selecting the right members from limited resources, motivating members regularly and achieving the required budget, the biggest challenge for me.
There are some things that people say, some things that people do, that stay with you. One of the habits instilled by my mother since childhood, was to ask and not be shy of anything. Coincidently while penning down my thoughts on ABG, I came across Santrupt Mishra and the group’s thought process – I quickly resonated with both.
To understand the entire procedure, I took groundwork from all my friends who had previously been a part of our college annual cultural fest - Umang, seniors in different colleges having fest experience and alumni of Narsee Monjee in order to understand the business culture. This culture was very new to me. But it did not stop me from moving ahead. I talked to different people’s and learned from their experience and knowledge to blend it with my thinking and came up with new ideas for catering solutions to the rising problems.
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