R. Gopalakrishnan (or Gopal) has spent 46 years in Business Management. For the first 31 years he worked for Unilever, rising to Vice Chairman in 1996. In 1998 he joined Tata Sons as a director and latterly became a non-executive director as well as Vice Chair or Chair of several publicly-listed Tata companies. He is also an independent director of Akzo Nobel India and Castrol India.
A career in business management is like a journey: from being a ‘doer of things’ to becoming a ‘manager of people’, from a ‘manager of people’ to a ‘leader of ideas’, and finally, from a ‘leader of ideas’ to a ‘shaper of institutions’. This journey asks us to transit from dealing with the ‘known problem–known solution’ arena to the ‘unknown problem–unknown solution’ arena. Sharing the story of his own journey and of those he worked with side-by-side at Unilever and Tata, in this masterclass ‘Gopal’ will take a unique deep dive into the leader’s journey that resonates both with experienced top managers and those just starting out.
Gopal is guiding the group through some of the crucial questions one confronts on the journey from manager to transformer:
The workshop is reflective and inspirational rather than instructional and uses lots of examples, lessons learned from personal experience and motivational stories from different parts of the world.