Taking Digital The Route

HOW ACCENTURE IN INDIA CHAIRMAN AND SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR MENON AND HER TEAM ARE NOT ONLY HELPING OTHER COMPANIES BUT ALSO THEMSELVES MIGRATE TO A DIGITAL WORLD.

- Ashish Gupta

REKHA M. MENON

60, CHAIRMAN AND SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR ACCENTURE IN INDIA (17)

KEY NO CHANGE MOVED UP MOVED DOWN NEW RETURNEE

BREAKING THE GLASS CEILING IN INDIA IS NEVER EASY. THE ROAD TO THE TOP IS OFTEN STUDDED WITH SPEED BUMPS FROM THE WORD GO. WHEN REKHA M. MENON TOPPED THE 1981 BATCH OF THE THEN XAVIER LABOUR RELATIONS INSTITUTE (NOW RENAMED XAVIER SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT), she found it extremely hard to get a job because “the biggest and the best companies of that time were apprehensive about hiring women”. After graduating, she wanted to work at a fast-moving consumer goods company but could not because it did not have a programme for women.

Menon then joined erstwhile heavy vehicle manufacturer Eicher Goodearth followed by truck-maker Ashok Leyland where she was the first woman on the shop floor. Once again, it was a man’s world: She soon realised there was no provision for a washroom for women there because the entire workforce was made of men. “I had to hop into my manager’s jeep and run to his house whenever nature called,” she remembers.

Those days are long gone and today Menon is driving the future of the Indian unit of one of the world’s leading global consulting and services firms: Accenture. The most interesting thing about the no-nonsense 60-year-old chairman and senior managing director of Accenture in India, is that it’s never “I” but always “We” in any discussion about the company’s achievements over the past 15 years. She joined the Indian office of the now $41-billion Accenture plc way back in 2004 and has since ramped up the company’s digital push as it prepares for a radically different future. And that’s why she’s on