To Be A CEO Is A Calling

This year’s annual Most Valuable CEOs are from varied industries, redefining leadership mantras in a challenging economic arena.

- Clifford Alvares

TO BE A CEO is a calling. You should not do it because it is a job. It is a calling, and you have got to be involved in it with your head, heart and hands,” once said Indra Nooyi, CEO, PepsiCo

If great businesses can sprout from the most unlikely backgrounds and situations, so too can great CEOs. With the blazing speed of reactions today to major decisions of CEO, it’s definitely not an easy era to be one. And it has not been so in the past three years — the period of the BW-Cedar Management Consulting study of the Most Valuable CEOs.

At the start of 2014, credit off-take in the economy had begun to be squeezed, and companies started cutting back on investing. CEOs were struggling and stretching themselves to alter strategies after the gutwrenching slowdown of 2013 and were seeking ways to conserve capital. The questions during those crucial years were: should we invest now or later? Should we continue with this product line or do away with that one? Should we invest more capital or re-direct resources the other way? And so on.

There were no easy answers. But some CEOs, to stay profitable, found newer areas of growth, paths untrodden but promising. Others tweaked their business models and came out ahead. Yet others, to strengthen their brands and business, invested further in research and development. When businesses require course corrections and ‘re-engineering,’ CEOs, perforce, have to lead the change. At times though, re-engineering is not needed, but a relentless focus on the goal.