Happy Mother's Day

On the tail of Mother's day, which some parts of the world celebrated this week, I have to tell you about an article I read in the New York Times (NYT) on May 6. (By the way. Mother's day in Israel has been renamed “family day”, in which the whole family is celebrated and not just the mother).


Written by NYT columnist Anand Giridharadas, the article, titled “New leaders find strength in diversity”, talks about an emergent breed of hybrid leaders – those who belong to “multiple worlds and who carry those worlds with them.”

Barack Hussein Obama, Carlos Ghosn, the French-Lebanese-Brazilian executive who runs both a French automaker (Renault) and a Japanese one (Nissan) and also Indra Nooyi, the chairwoman of PepsiCo, are good examples of these kind of people, says Giridharadas.

They, he writes in his article, are products of multiple backgrounds, lifestyles and cultures and this eclectic mix tinges their actions and their attitude to life and events. They are not alone however: “These hybrid leaders also abound beyond the spotlight, in firms and civic groups and governments,” Giridharadas writes.

Much of the article however focussed on PepsiCo chairman Nooyi, “a synthesis,” as Giridharadas calls her. She is an American citizen born in India who has spoken of entering American politics one day.

“As a Yale student…she wore a sari to an interview with a consulting firm and, upon getting the job, kept wearing it. She is a New York Yankees fan. She walks barefoot in the office at times, in an echo of the Indian aversion to closed shoes. She speaks in a faintly Indian accent while tossing out Americanisms like ‘cut my teeth,’” Giridharadas writes.

Shortly after Ms. Nooyi became PepsiCo’s chief executive in 2007, she returned to India and visited her mother, who asked her to dress up and sit beside her as guests came to offer good wishes. “One by one, they ignored the famous leader and went straight to her mother, telling her what a good daughter she had raised,” Giridharadas writes, based on what Nooyi said in a video interview posted online.

Like the hybrid leader she is, Ms. Nooyi brought the idea home and to the parents of her senior managers. “I wrote to those parents and told them how much they contributed to the success of PepsiCo through the gift of their son or daughter,” Nooyi said in the interview. “And it unleashed emotions that were unbelievable.”

So. Mothers all over the world. Congratulations on the success of your children. And happy Mother's day.

Photo: Indra Nooyi.
http://www.womensconference.org/assets/Uploads/INooyi306x306.jpg