'In The Old Days, You Could Buy Talent With Money'

Damien O’Brien, chairman of executive search firm Egon Zehnder, talks about the evolution of company boards and identifying new leaders

- Manu Balachandran

Last August, when Vishal Sikka, CEO of India’s second largest IT Company, Infosys, resigned abruptly, the company had a tough task at hand—to quickly find a replacement. To do that, Bengaluru-based Infosys had turned to Zurich-head quartered Egon Zehnder, an executive search firm established in 1954 and ranked sixth among the US’s best recruiting firms by Forbes. Egon Zehnder didn’t disappoint, and soon helped zero in on Salil Parekh as the new CEO.

The firm has been in India for 22 years, with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and New Delhi. In the past it has helped companies including Infosys, Wipro and Microsoft find their top leadership.

In an interview with Forbes India, Chairman Damien O’Brien, who is based in Zurich, talks about what makes successful leaders, the evolving role of company boards, and how they identify leaders. Excerpts:

Q What are some of the trends you see emerging out of India?

What we are seeing in India is in line with what we are seeing around the world. That is, the emphasis on leadership development and developing a pipeline of leaders.

When I had joined our firm in 1988, 90 percent of what we did was executive search. These days a large part of what we do is working with companies to develop their future leaders. That is what we are seeing here in India, and globally too, because of the shortage and complexity of leadership.

Q A lot of companies still look outside when they have to find their leadership. Is that trend changing now?