Convocation Address

By

Reliance Industries Limited

Vice-Chairman and Managing Director

Anil D. Ambani

I have the rare privilege and honour of being part of two convocation functions on the same day. Dr. Kalam, who was not then the President of India when he had come as Chief Guest to ISB and my good friend Kumar Birla, was the Chief Guest last year. And I think that his being the Chief Guest here at ISB has really brought him into focus and limelight. And, he has won, probably, every award post that event. So, after having Kalam and Kumar here to speak. And after hearing Vijay* and Rajat**, as both of them have successfully communicated a large number of my thoughts and have spoken my mind. So there is frankly nothing much more for me to add. What I thought was that I will not talk about leadership or leadership styles because over the last one year as you have been through the program, you have had enough of showcasing of everything that potentially I learnt, and that, you have learnt at business school. It really is a strong endorsement to the fact that just 125 years ago, Sarojini Naidu, one of our greatest leaders, orator, poetess, was born in Hyderabad, in 1879, had to travel to Madras to pursue her school education. There was no education infrastructure in Hyderabad at that time. But, today of course, amongst many things, Hyderabad also boasts of ISB. This then takes my thoughts to women in business and politics. Sarojini Naidu played a key role in the freedom movement of the country. And today, in a vast number of states we have had women Chief Ministers. We have had women Prime Ministers, not only in India but, even in Egypt. Then why is it that we do not have them well represented in the corporate world. And, it starts with the fact that we do not have enough women entering business schools. I was looking at the statistics which showed that close to 17% of the graduating class today comprises of women. Lets just compare this to a lesser known school called Harvard. In the class of 2005, more than 35% of the graduating class is women. More than double and, the class size is much much larger than where we are today. I said, a lesser known school called Harvard, primarily because, I believe, Rajat comes from Harvard and I come from a better known school called Wharton.
* Vijay Mahajan, Dean, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad * * Rajat Gupta, Chairman, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

So, I clearly believe that women, and especially young women have a very large responsibility and have to aim for the future. The second thought that really struck me was, the power of youth. It is the young power of India that has really put India on the global map. When we talk about IT and IT enabled services, the average age of the people who are serving that sector is 26. Why is it that the best and the brightest of our people dont want to join politics? Is that changing? And, I feel that it is changing. Lets take a look at newer entrances to Parliament. Sachin Pilot, a Wharton MBA, Omar Abdullah, Jyotiraditya Scindia, an MBA from Stanford. These are all people who are turning to politics. And maybe their fathers have been in politics so they are turning to it but after their education, they really had the choice of every possible alternate career they could think of. And why do we need young blood in politics? I recently looked at the Lok Sabha website, 72% of the members of Lok Sabha are over the age of 50. More than 50% are over the age of 60. More than 25% are even older. Lets contrast that with 75% of our population really being under the age of 40. And as all of us put our heads together, we are talking about effectively running organisations in the future. Can all of us really excel in what we are doing? But we dont have an inducive, vital and a booming external environment. So, can we truly grow? Can we truly evolve simultaneously both internally and externally? In this case, internally I mean, institutions, organisations, companies and corporations and externally, I am referring to our political environment. I do see this as a challenge that all of us will have to face. If there was one thing I would like to do with the advancement of technology, is to rewind, and instead of graduating in 1982 from Wharton, graduate in 2004 with all of you. The world has changed and so has India. The opportunities and linked with them, the challenges, the threats are so different that I could not have imagined in my wildest imagination, when I graduated from Wharton that this is where our country is really going to be. So, I believe, that all of you are very privileged children of god that you are here at one of the most exciting times that this country has seen and India is clearly on its way to gain its rightful place of being an economic superpower. All of you are already armed with a lot of detailed understanding and a lot of management and organisational techniques that are really needed in the new world. But let me make a few observations.

Compared to the past, all of you will live much longer. This is the contribution of rapid progress made by science and so all of you are going to have a much longer working life. Also, you are living in a borderless, seamless techno world where opportunities really know no boundaries. This is the era of intellectual capital. Intellectual capital is king. And with these challenges and these new evolutions what you should be ready with is, competition, at the individual level, at the family level, at the institutional level, at the country level and this is no longer local, global or regional. The longer working life, will also mean that career planning and choices will have to be made many times as you grow 70 and 80. So, I dont believe, that there is going to be retirement at 50 or 55. This means that skills will get redundant extremely fast and they will have to be replaced as quickly. This will undoubtedly put tremendous pressure on each one of us. Lifestyle change, faster pace of living puts tremendous pressure on individuals and creates both constructive and destructive tension leading to high stress. So the importance of mental and physical fitness and a balanced life, I think, will also be extremely important. I would really be failing in my comments today, if I didnt share with you what I call, Conversations with Dhirubhai. Because if it was not for him, his vision, his commitment and his dreams, Reliance, my brother Mukesh and I would not have existed. I recall, it was 13th of December 1982, when I landed back in Bombay, now Mumbai, after graduating from Wharton. I ran through some summer school, summer program and graduated in 14-15 months. Though I was class of 1983, I graduated actually in 1982. So on arrival, when I met him, I told him, look dad I have become an MBA and am just going to take a break as I have really worked hard. He said to me, I am very happy, I am delighted that you have accomplished this. But since I didnt go to any formal school or college and I dont have any degree, why dont you tell me from your learnings at Wharton, what does an MBA stand for? I thought thats a rather simple and easy question. Its Master of Business Administration. He said in his imitable style, his interpretation of an MBA was Mane badhu avde chhe. Literally meaning, I am know all, I know everything. He said, you are entering India and you need to Indianise your MBA. I said, fine, I am going to work here and naturally that should not be a very big issue. He said, did they at Wharton school teach you of custom duties? About

excise duties? About income tax? About sales tax? About Parliament? And I see in the audience, a former member of the Parliament, Shri. Kamal Choudhary, whom my father knew well. And he said, do you know what is the zero hour question? What is the call in attention motion? What is the starred and unstarred question? He said, if you dont get to know all these things, let me assure you that all your formal education is not really going to help you. You need your practical Indian MBA and I am going to go and create that environment for you so that you can get that. He then went on to ask me, saying, tell me as you are a fresh MBA, just entering corporate life, what is the definition of a leader? I said, I have really forgotten all my books back at Philadelphia and I have really no interest today to talk about theoretical definitions. He said, no, its pretty easy for you if you just admit that you dont know what the definition is. I said to him, okay, lets assume that I dont know the definition, why dont you tell me since you have all the answers to everything, what is a leader? He said, in his very simplistic style, A leader is a person who can attract followers, if you think you are a leader, please look back when you are walking. If there is nobody following you, you are not a leader of any type. Very simplistic but very deep rooted meaning. He then went on to say, you are entering Reliance. I am the trustee of over lakhs of individual shareholders, who are the real owners of Reliance. Anil, you have really a choice. You have a choice to demand respect or you have a choice to command respect, you choose. You can demand respect being an Ambani, you are Dhirubhais son, so people will have to listen to what you say. Or, you can command respect on the basis of your skills set, your attitude, your upbringing, and your knowledge on issues. And that is what will carry people with you. But you still have that choice to make as you enter corporate life. And I would highly recommend to you that you command respect rather than demand respect. These were very simplistic messages to me. But given to me more than 25 years ago are still very deep in my mind, in my heart, in my soul. I asked him, everybody tells me that your father is a great visionary, can you explain to me, what do you think is your definition of a visionary? He looked at me and said, I dont even know if you will understand what I am going to say because you are an MBA, and I am a MABF. I looked at him with some puzzlement and said, I have heard of FRCS, MBBS,

MBA, B.Com, B.A, LLB, but, I have never heard of MABF, what is that degree? As I was aware that he had no degree. He said, it was Matric Appeared But Failed. He then went on to say, Anil, I am very very grateful to god. He was a very strong believer in god. God has been very kind to me and he has given me the power and the ability to dream. But, this difference between your dreaming and my dreaming, is very simple. Everyone of us dreams but there is a small difference between the way we dream. God has given me the power to dream with my eyes open. Dreaming with my eyes open I have a better chance than you to convert my dreams into a reality. For you dream with your eyes closed, you have a lesser chance to make it into reality but a higher chance to convert it into a nightmare. He said, everybody talks about Karma and everybody talks about destiny but let me tell you that destiny, fate is not a matter only of chance, it is also a matter of choice. And in my fathers words, for all of you and for all of us in India, I believe, that if you can dream it, you can do it. Thank you.

Convocation Address

March 27, 2004 Hyderabad