Latest / Chief Officer / Bala Sathyanarayanan, Chief Officer at Greif: Be That Village for Someone

Transcript

Bala Sathyanarayanan, Chief Officer at Greif: Be That Village for Someone · Chief Officer

0:00
Hi, Bala, how are you doing? Pleasure meeting you, Tiffany.
0:04
Thank you so much. Looking forward to this conversation. Absolutely.
0:09
Same as well. It's always a pleasure to see you and really
0:14
looking forward to conversing about your life and career and
0:18
your inspiring lessons. Happy to. Thank you. Absolutely. Well,
0:23
kicking things right off. Excited again to hear about your life journey.
0:28
I'd love to hear more about where you grew up and your career along the
0:33
way before you got to your chief officer role, of course. I grew up in
0:38
India, a place called Madras, now called Chennai. It's in the southern
0:43
part of India. And that's where I was born and raised.
0:46
I started my career working for United Technologies. That's where I started
0:51
my journey as an engineer. I started with UTC's Elevator Division. Then it
0:56
was part of the UTC, now an independent company, independent public
1:01
company, Otis Elevator Company. I started with Otis as a graduate engineer
1:06
trainee.
1:06
worked for Otis in India. I did a technology transfer
1:11
stint for Otis in Malaysia working on a project at Kuala
1:15
Lumpur. Then the world's tallest building. How is that
1:20
transition by the way from India to Kuala Lumpur? Did you
1:25
have culture shock at all?
1:27
The beauty of being an engineer is you're working with the machine. So
1:31
irrespective of which part of the world you're living in, you're working
1:35
with the same machine. The human dimension was very challenging. And that's
1:39
where I came to understand and appreciate the importance of working with
1:43
people, getting things done through people. And that drew me into management
1:47
and leadership and ultimately as the chief officer today.
1:50
But that transition happened while at Otis. So when I came back from Otis in
1:55
Malaysia back to India, I went around the country in India training people
1:59
on the new technology that was installed at the KL Towers. And one thing led
2:03
to other from training, I moved into management development and lo and
2:06
behold, management development was housed under human resources or a period
2:11
of time I moved into human resources. So from Otis, I went to Coca-Cola in
2:15
India.
2:15
intentional from your perspective that move from training to management
2:20
development to men with human resources or was that someone recognizing
2:25
that ability in you and asking you of that like how did that transition
2:29
happen? It was definitely not planned. But someone who saw me do the
2:34
training into someone who saw me in action.
2:37
talking about the new technology which Otis India was inheriting from
2:42
Kuala Lumpur and the stuff that was being done at KL Towers at that
2:47
time was the latest technology and it was a Japanese microprocessor
2:52
technology that was being implemented in Malaysia and no one in the
2:56
world has seen it then because still then no one had ever seen such a
3:01
tall building.
3:02
So when I came back to India to train people on the new technology, the head
3:07
of management development saw me do the training and he saw potential
3:11
which I did not see in me. And he gave me that opportunity. He gave me the
3:16
platform. I love that. That's how the journey started. Amazing. That first
3:21
believer. Oh, that first believer. And I was blessed.
3:24
in my career, not just on the professional side, but also on the personal
3:28
side to have those believers. There was a school teacher. In fact, he ran
3:33
the scouting program for our school, Mr. Victor. And he saw potential in me
3:38
and he was the one who pushed me into study sciences. And that's how I got
3:43
into engineering. My parents have had a significant influence on me.
3:47
my sister, my brother, and now my family, my wife, and my boys.
3:52
They believe more in me than I do. Yeah, absolutely. I love that.
3:57
That feels very familiar with me as well. Family, a teacher, an
4:01
early believer in career. It's so powerful to have those believers
4:06
in these important phases and your formative phases.
4:10
And so then you were saying you then went on to Coca-Cola. That's correct.
4:15
So at Otis, I moved into management development. I was the safety and the
4:19
training officer. From Otis, I moved to Coca-Cola to be the operations
4:23
training manager for the India operations. And one thing led to another. I
4:28
got married at that time. My wife was moved from India to the United States.
4:32
She moved to AIG, American International Group.
4:35
And I left Coca-Cola to start my career here from scratch in the United
4:39
States. I joined a software company called Polaris and went to work for
4:44
Avaya, the communications company, then went to work for Hewlett Packard
4:48
from Hewlett Packard Xerox and now the Chief Human Resources Officer of
4:53
Greif. And that's been my journey. - That's incredible. And so you were at
4:57
Hewlett Packard? - Correct. - Right before Greif.
5:00
Before Greif, Xerox. Before Xerox, Avaya. Exactly. Okay, perfect. And
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so when you were at Xerox, what was your title there? What was your
5:10
last role there before that chief officer role? I was the executive
5:14
vice president and head of business transformation for the
5:19
organization. Incredible. Okay, I see. So throughout this timeframe, then
5:24
you had
5:24
different operations roles, different, I mean, you bring in so much
5:28
different perspective than engineering to operations to HR to training to,
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you know, again, all aspects of what a technology company might want and
5:37
need and, and then within Xerox, you were head of business operations and
5:42
transformation. Transformation. Absolutely right. I had HR for the
5:46
technology business and business transformation. I see. I see.
5:50
And so then what was that moment like that transition then to the chief
5:55
officer role? Did you A) get a call from Greif? Was it a search firm? Was
6:00
it a mentor? How did this transition happen? The call happened through a
6:04
search firm when a search firm came knocking. Before that, the
6:09
internal call that I could become a chief officer happened while I was at
6:14
Hewlett Packard.
6:15
I worked for an exceptional leader. Her name is Susan Kelliher. And she was
6:20
my boss at Hewlett Packard. And she went on to become a CHRO not once, but
6:25
twice of different organizations. But it was Susan who told me that you need
6:30
to think bigger than your current role model. Amazing. At that point in
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time, I never expected that someone with a name like mine.
6:38
a last name which is still unpronounceable for so many of my own friends. I
6:43
never thought of being a chief officer in America. That's incredible. How do
6:47
you personally pronounce your own last name so that everyone in our audience
6:52
can listen to it and hear it? Sathya Narayanan, is how you say it. Sathya
6:56
Narayanan. It's a long name.
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In fact, my dad's name, I come from a part of India where we do not have a
7:02
concept of a last name. So when I came here to this country, they asked me
7:06
for my last name and I said, I don't have one. And they're like, okay, we
7:10
know where you come from. Tell me what your dad's name is. That's how I got
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stuck with Sathyanarayanan. My name is Bala. - That's incredible. What a
7:18
beautiful heritage to know that piece of your history.
7:22
And so then you ended up hearing from Susan, she believed in you and that
7:26
she believed that you were capable of this, that you had incredible
7:30
potential and that you should go for this. And so what was that
7:35
journey like once you heard that to have to start to believe in yourself?
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Was there any sort of leveling up that you had to do on your own and to
7:44
to start to realize that you should be the chief officer next. Once she put
7:49
the seed in me, she also nurtured that seed by providing me with the
7:53
exposure beyond my day job at Hewlett-Packard. And she introduced me to
7:58
folks in the industry. In those days, sitting CHROs and folks from various
8:02
firms, she said, "Look, you need to attend that forum. You need to go into
8:07
this conference." So she started nurturing it. And as
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she was helping me in that, I started believing more in it because someone
8:14
saw more potential. Just like Mr. Victor saw potential in me while I was in
8:18
school and here was someone who genuinely believed in me and I did not, I
8:22
did this for Susan, I did not want to let her down. Just like I did not want
8:25
to let my school teacher down and you could relate to this experience. I
8:29
started stepping up and when the call finally came from a headhunter while I
8:33
was at Xerox Corporation to become the Chief Officer,
8:36
It just worked out. And once I got into Greif, met with the CEO, met
8:40
with the board, met with the executive leadership team, it became clear
8:45
that I was destined to get there. But that seed was sown by one
8:50
individual, Susan Kelliher, who believed in me. And when I went to
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Xerox, I was also lucky to work for Darrell Ford, who found ways and
8:59
means of giving me that exposure.
9:01
and who found ways and means of tapping into that intrinsic drive I had to
9:06
get me to do the stuff which I never believed I was capable of doing. So
9:11
those things helped a lot. - Thank you, Bala. I love that. And it resonates
9:16
so much. It's actually one of my favorite things to hear. In hosting this
9:20
Chief Officer podcast, I have the incredible opportunity and honor to speak
9:25
with...
9:26
the top CEOs of the world, the top CHROs of the world. And the
9:30
stories kind of align to generally, you know, the patterns and
9:35
industry trends that we hear today. You know, 20% of the time,
9:40
someone will tell us, you know, our various guests that they attain their
9:45
chief officer position through a search firm, which aligns again
9:49
with industry trends.
9:51
20% of the time these positions tend to be attained through search firms.
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And obviously as the leader of a search firm, Mogul, I'm proud to hear it.
10:00
But my favorite times are the other 80%. When I get to hear from the guests
10:04
that someone believed in them and could see that innate drive and in
10:09
believing in them, it tapped into that innate drive and helped them to step
10:13
up and then help them to realize
10:15
their next steps and their next dreams and attain that chief officer role.
10:19
And I love to hear the story of the mentor, the person. And that person for
10:23
you, it sounds like, was Susan. Absolutely correct. And I still continue to
10:27
stay in touch with Susan. Oh, I love that. And she was creating that
10:31
exposure for you. Were there other people from that exposure that you were
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therefore able to establish friendships with?
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and therefore, you know, started to support yourself as well or... - And
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that's where the journey started, right? And as they say, it takes a
10:46
village, develop talent. It takes a village to build someone. And because I
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learned from some of the best likes of a Kelliher or a Darrell Ford of the
10:55
world, I want to be that village for someone else. I want to be part of that
10:59
village to help develop the talent and that, but these role models...
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they paid it forward and they inspired me to continue to do that. Yeah,
11:07
incredible. And so when you were at Greif, what was the day like when you
11:12
learned that you were selected as the chief officer? Was it a phone call and
11:16
who was the first person that you ended up informing? Was it your family?
11:21
Who was it? The first person who I ended up informing was my family and the
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first person who my inform was my wife.
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She was the one who believed in me. You know, I was telling you the story
11:31
about she moved moving into the US because she found a job. We were engaged
11:35
in India, both of us were engaged in India. And then her organization moved
11:39
her from India to the United States. So she moved to the United States and
11:43
she was reluctant to move to the United States because I was already working
11:47
for Coca Cola in India. Good job. And she was like, look, I've got the job,
11:51
but can you move? And I was like,
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let me think about it. And she was like, look, I believe you will have more
11:58
opportunities there. You've got to believe in yourself. But before I
12:02
believed in myself, she believed in me. And then I took a chance by
12:07
following her. And the day this job arrived, she was the first person I
12:11
communicated. And she was like, look, I told you so. She was not surprised.
12:16
I was surprised that I got the job.
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She was not, but she was happy and I was genuinely happy that she was happy
12:23
and I was so pleased to share that news with her. That's incredible. That's
12:28
amazing. So what was your first week like as Chief Officer? The first week
12:32
was all about coming in, understanding the business and hitting the ground
12:37
running. Understanding the key levers that could move this organization.
12:41
the work that needed to be done not just in terms of building the human
12:45
resources function and stabilizing the HR organization but more importantly
12:49
transforming the organization to find ways and means of ensuring that we
12:53
found a way to deliver an inclusive and a world-class and engaged workforce
12:57
to help the organization execute on the business strategy.
13:00
And here we are the last eight years, we went from a place where we were on
13:04
the bottom quartile of colleague engagement for the organization to the top
13:08
decile, not the top quartile, the top decile of colleague engagement as
13:12
measured by Gallup. Yeah, incredible. Along the way, we not just moved
13:16
engagement, we also moved the the net promoter score of the organization.
13:20
It's not just engaged colleagues, but also customers.
13:23
feeling a lot more engaged. And Greif has a net promoter score of 72, the
13:27
highest for a B2B company in the packaging space. And that shows up. When
13:32
you have engaged employees, the customer is appreciated and that shows up in
13:37
NPS and that ultimately shows up in your EBITDA, that shows up in your stock
13:41
price. And here's the organization, 149-year-old organization. The stock
13:46
price is top quartile, the best stock performance.
13:49
ever in the history of the organization. Wow, incredible. That's amazing.
13:53
And do you feel like that is one of the proudest accomplishments in your
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career or when you look back upon your journey, what would you say is your
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proudest accomplishment? This is clearly one of the proudest accomplishments
14:07
for me along the journey that are multiple in every organization, but this
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we were able to call a play.
14:13
on focusing on the colleagues so that we could execute on the business
14:17
strategy and the business outcomes. We not just call the play, but we
14:20
executed the play. And we show the world that it is possible. It takes time.
14:25
But you take great care of your people. Your people will do the right thing
14:29
of taking great care of your customers. And if you take exceptional care of
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your customers, they will do the right thing.
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by providing you with an opportunity to serve them again and again. And that
14:39
will translate into the financial outcomes, which is what you're shooting
14:43
for. But you won't get there if you do not do your fundamentals right, which
14:47
is take great care of your customers. And for you to take great care of your
14:51
customers, that starts with you taking great care of your employees and we
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call them colleagues. And that's the reason why I use the word colleague
14:58
engagement. - I see, I love that.
15:00
And what I love, while I was the way you speak, I've always known and
15:05
it's very important to me that you're very visionary in the way you
15:09
think, you're very long-term as well in the way you think, so you don't
15:14
resolve issues with kind of short-term or midterm thinking, you're
15:19
long-term. And so I love that about you and the way you address
15:23
challenges and...
15:24
And I see, you know, that's likely why you're also one of the top
15:29
CHROs in the US and the world, and obviously have been tremendously
15:34
successful also as a board member as well, as a CHRO that's one of the
15:39
few to hold a public board member seat. So I just think that's
15:43
phenomenal, and I wanted to highlight that for you. And I'm curious.
15:48
Given that you're very, very visionary, how are you thinking about AI and
15:52
the future of work in your company, in the industry? I wonder if you have
15:56
any thoughts to share with the audience on that. I fundamentally believe AI
16:00
is going to be a game changer. While you might not see proof points as we
16:04
speak, there are multiple pilots that are going on real time that are
16:08
various organizations that are multiple studies which says AI works, AI does
16:12
not work.
16:13
But the outcome of AI transforming the way we work in the future is here to
16:17
stay. And that's a journey we are on. It's so easy for us to look at an
16:22
AI intervention or an AI project and say, oh my goodness, you're not
16:27
getting an ROI today. Why would you invest that money? We should ask a
16:31
different question rather than asking for an ROI on the AI investment. The
16:36
question we should be asking is,
16:38
what will happen if the company does not embark on an
16:43
AI journey? That's a bigger risk than not taking the
16:47
opportunities which AI provides us. It will take time
16:52
for us to see the outcome of that intervention. But we
16:57
are starting the journey by ensuring that we train our
17:02
colleagues.
17:03
on adoption of AI, making them comfortable with use of AI and finding ways
17:07
and means of helping them leverage AI to augment their work on a daily
17:11
basis. - Yes, absolutely. - We're not starting from a place of 'use this
17:16
technology so that it could replace your job.' - Yeah. - And if that people
17:20
are not going to, they're going to be a worse using it. We're talking from a
17:24
place of 'leverage this technology to help you do your job better.'
17:28
Yes, yes. Look at your job as a whole and look at all the tasks which you're
17:33
doing inside your job and see what tasks you could outsource to AI so that
17:38
you can take that time and use it more productively to do your job better.
17:42
And once that mindset sinks in, then they have, they're very comfortable
17:47
leveraging AI to delegate some tasks so that they could focus on getting
17:51
their job done better, faster.
17:53
more effective and efficiently in a way in which they could learn and grow
17:58
because of AI. And that mindset, that thinking has to come in and we as
18:03
leaders will have to embark on the journey by showing proof points of how to
18:08
do it. And the first proof point is, as leaders, you and I need to start
18:12
using AI in our day-to-day life. It's not just prompting, it's not just
18:17
asking AI to write something for us.
18:19
It's much more than that. It's much more than that in terms of helping
18:24
leveraging AI to make your job better using the skills in the AI. How
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do I feed something? How do I automate it? It's not just AI as you see
18:34
it.
18:35
It's how do you build an agent? I've built an agent for my own self. I've
18:39
actually built a digital twin for myself. It's called BalaBot. Oh, I love
18:43
that. BalaBot is available inside my organization, but any of the colleagues
18:47
in the organization can go have a conversation with the CHRO, which will
18:51
talk to you as if I'm speaking to you. So when I role model that behavior of
18:55
leveraging AI to augment their work, leveraging AI to make their work
18:59
better, you have so much.
19:01
colleagues in the organization follow, not just use of AI, not just use of
19:05
agentic AI, not just use of embedded AI. They will need to get more
19:10
comfortable with it and look at AI as there to help them, not to replace
19:14
them. Oh, great points. I loved so many of the points you just made, you
19:19
know, for employees adopting that mindset of how it really helps them,
19:23
augments them, and as a leader, not necessarily
19:26
having the anxiety at the moment of connecting things to revenue
19:31
immediately, but more so, reminding yourself that there's consequences to
19:36
be had if not adopting it now. So less so, again, that connection to
19:40
revenue and more so right now, the consequences of not doing so. But I
19:45
love your last point as well of being the role model, an example in
19:49
this. I take that to heart yesterday.
19:52
So, Mogul, we're Executive Search, we're also training for a lot of the
19:57
Fortune 1000. And that includes leadership training, of course, which is
20:02
very evergreen. Otherwise, it's AI training as well. So yesterday, did AI
20:07
training for employees across the Fortune 25 company. And I actually
20:11
personally led the sessions across those organizations, this particular
20:16
one at least.
20:17
And I found that it was really helpful to actually provide the personal
20:21
example, to leave them with kind of this final piece of inspiration at the
20:26
very end. I shared, you know, as you create all these repeatable workflows,
20:31
you know, you go back to the same chat, you keep doing that same task, and
20:35
then that chat will become very knowledgeable about that specific task that
20:40
you're doing on a recurring basis.
20:42
And over time you can create multiple chats, right? And across each one of
20:47
your repeatable workflows, your recurring tasks. And over the course of one,
20:52
two months, you might get eight repeatable workflows pinned across your AI
20:56
platform. Over the next six months, I arrived at around 20. And now year to
21:01
date, over the course of 10 months, let's say,
21:04
After pinning all my recurring tasks across all the roles I hold and all the
21:09
things I do, I'm currently at 35 repeatable workflows pinned across my
21:14
platform, you know, on Copilot, on Claude, or GPT, et cetera, 35. And I just
21:19
thought it was really helpful for the audience to hear on a personal level
21:23
the numbers I'm at. If I'm one of the ones who, you know, has...
21:27
I'm training hundreds of Fortune 1000 organizations across hundreds of
21:32
thousands of employees. And I'm considered one of the leaders in this space.
21:36
And here's the number I'm at. I felt like it gave a lot of reassurance and
21:41
kind of inspiration on where to land at. Anyways, I very much, therefore,
21:46
agree with you on us as leaders serving as an example.
21:50
being a role model in this space and adopting it ourselves. I love that you
21:54
built your own digital twin. That's incredible. You're actually one of the
21:58
few to ever tell me that. So that's amazing. At the top levels in the
22:01
C-suite. And I also thought it was really helpful to share with the audience
22:05
yesterday, and I'm sharing it also on this podcast for everyone's benefit,
22:09
that, you know, as a leader, I used to...
22:12
I run these organizations. I used to go to sleep regularly at 2
22:16
or 3 a.m. I know that's not sustainable. I know I don't preach it
22:21
for anyone else to copy. But now with AI, I don't sleep past 2 or
22:26
3 a.m. anymore. I can say that. I'm sleeping before midnight. So
22:31
AI is truly really transformative and life-changing in so many
22:36
positive ways.
22:37
I just felt like sharing that as a leader too can really show people how
22:42
it's transformative in many of the right ways as well, even though there
22:47
may be some fears out there. That's a fantastic example, right? Because
22:52
AI is here to augment. AI is here to help. Any technology for that
22:56
matter, if that does not help, life get better for the users or the
23:01
organization or the firm.
23:02
that that technology is useless. But for us to leverage the technology to
23:06
help us, we need to learn the technology. The challenge with leaders is
23:10
leaders are not used to doing stuff. They're used to delegating it and
23:14
getting people to do it. And for the first time in history, we have a
23:18
technology where leaders will have to use it, role model it so that they
23:22
could help their teams become so much more smarter and get everyone to
23:26
embrace it.
23:27
>> And role modeling behavior has to start right at the top. >> Exactly.
23:32
>> And that's a great example. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much for
23:36
sharing that. And one of my final questions to you is, what advice would
23:41
you give to a leader who is that one step below the chief officer
23:46
role and wants to be more like yourself and become a chief officer?
23:50
Two things. So one is they want to be the chief officer, right? So you said
23:55
that's where they are, which means they have the will, the will to be the
24:00
chief officer, which means they have the ambition. They also need to have
24:04
the energy to translate that ambition into an outcome and that takes energy,
24:09
that takes commitment and they will need, they should be comfortable putting
24:14
in that energy.
24:15
And they need to be absolutely focused to get to the chief officer job. So
24:19
all those things, ambition, energy, and the focus will come under the will.
24:24
Along the way, the will, they also need to have the skill. They need to
24:28
constantly keep building the skill to be ready. Because before the title
24:32
came to me, or for anyone before the title goes to any individual,
24:36
They will have to walk and talk and behave that way by demonstrating that
24:41
they already have the skills. It's not just the technical skills of what the
24:46
job demands. It's about their ability to work with people, the ability to
24:50
work through people, the ability to read a room, the ability to understand
24:55
what was not just being said, but also what was left on the table, unsaid,
25:00
but you find a way to connect the dots.
25:02
And if you build those skills and you focus on your will, which you
25:07
already have, then when that opportunity knocks, when that headhunter
25:12
knocks, when Mogul calls with the chief officer, you're not just ready
25:17
to take the interview, but more importantly, you could go hit the
25:21
ground running from day one. Wonderful advice. Absolutely.
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And now can I do a 30 second rapid fire with you? Please,
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fire away. Okay, perfect. Rapid fire first. Favorite
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Indian dish? Favorite Indian dish: Mughal biryani.
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Amazing. You've got to taste it. Once you taste it, you
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are addicted to it for life. Love that. Favorite way to
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spend downtime with your family? Going on a drive with
25:54
my wife. We will drive for 30, 35 minutes. Both of us
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will never say a single word in that journey.
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But we would have had a great conversation. Being together makes a
26:06
difference. Oh, amazing. And final rapid fire, favorite way to keep yourself
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informed of the latest news and industry and sites and trends? Multiple
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things. On a daily basis, it's the Wall Street Journal and the New York
26:20
Times and the Financial Times daily. On a weekly basis, it's the Economist.
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There's not a weekend which goes by without reading The Economist.
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In addition to that, you've got your fortune, you've got your McKinsey
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Quarterly, you've got MIT Sloan. They stopped publishing the book, stopped
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publishing the magazine. It's all now electronic. Then on a monthly basis,
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it's the Harvard Business Review, your alma mater, which just has a
26:45
phenomenal job of keeping us informed about the big picture. Along the way,
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you've got to catch up with the BCGs and the Bains and the McKinseys.
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through your various industry forums, you get your various conferences and
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sessions which you find a way to get your little nuggets that helps you stay
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aware of what's going on. Does it make you complete? No, but at least it
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tells you things that are going on and you realize that there is so much
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more you need to know. And the pursuit of that knowing journey is what keeps
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you going.
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Absolutely. So much wisdom here. Thank you so much, Bala. What a wonderful
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conversation. You're such an inspiration and it's been such a delight
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speaking with you today. Oh, definitely always a pleasure. Great catching
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up. Thank you.