My interest in technology enabling us to work from anywhere, especially financial sales & trading, was kindled in the mid-1980s through some articles in Time / Newsweek! With COVID the financial sector was able to completely achieve this, globally for every role; even though off-shoring and outsourcing started in the 90s.
By 1995 I was involved in a re-engineering project for GM (Canada) and Telstra (Australia) from India. It felt incredible to deliver services that we had not experienced.
It sparked the imagination and aspiration in us!
I joined Guardian Royal Exchange in Q1 1997, with the remit to set up a 250 man off-shored team in 1 year.
We partnered with the Big-four to identify opportunities, set up infrastructure & groom staff to deliver to exacting global standards of quality, timeliness & culture. It was steep learning and the target was achieved after 4 years with some de-tours: integrating Guardian Health with PPP healthcare; divesting Guardian Employee Benefits to Scottish Widows and finally being bought by Axa. We were evaluated for retention, then in the custody of 9 bosses in 1 year & post 6 board meetings we got the investment to grow. For me, it was a huge growth experience in survival and achieving the collective aspiration …
As I shared my knowledge with others on this journey, Swiss Re’s asked me to join their off-shoring entity’s board as an Independent Director, where I stayed for ~20 years. My role & contribution evolved with the ecosystem, Swiss Re’ organizational changes, and my career trajectory – hopefully, I added value over the years.
I joined Thomson Corporation in 2001; it became Thomson Reuters in 2008. I grew the organization from 200-9000 people in 9 years. We started as a team-building Content & Technology – this off-shored team was truly a core to Thomson’s global revenues. During a Board visit, in the early days, we presented over 50 ‘Proof of Concepts’ over 2 days, which led us to establish a global product team; becoming part of the global innovation efforts for Front End Customer Strategy and looking at opportunities for the emerging markets from the off-shored unit. All this while delivering 6% Operating Margins to the group. During this time ISO & CMM enabled us to build capability while Talent management was key. Yet our ownership of the sales functions truly connected us to our customers. As the MD responsible for this I was in a unique position to deliver and grow.
The off-shoring impact of Thomson acquiring Reuters was massive with every organizational policy/process being revamped; 1800 roles needing redeployment while the organization doubled in size and most critically the creation of the culture under the intensely stressful condition of integration.
2008 also had our Strategy & News teams being the front runners in providing information to the globe - we were no longer an ‘off-shored' unit. We were euphoric about our importance to the group.
After this experience, moving to Deutsche Bank off-shored team was a completely different experience.
DB was ahead of its peer banks with the bulk of the Investment Banking back-office work being done off-shore yet it was still focused on building the teams, creating utilities as well as driving efficiencies. My dual role of heading the India center while having a Global Business Engineering responsibility gave me a unique perspective of being both the insider (on-shore) and outsider (off-shore). We then moved to a more front-to-back organization with all the challenges and opportunities. Moving to the bank I had supervisory oversight for the bank (including as the Chief Risk Officer for DB India) which included vendor / off-shoring as well as for all the DB entities in India. The oversight of the off-shored legal entities covering front-office junior bankers to infrastructure (ops, tech, risk, legal, compliance, procurement, finance, credit/market risk, etc.) gave me the full perspective of both customer-facing, strategic & on/off-shore experience.
My final role as the Divisional Control & Regulatory officer with both a global and regional remit while sitting out of an off-shored entity especially while covering Vendor Risk (including onboarding Google) & the culture for 2 divisions of the bank seems ironic. Yet immensely fulfilling, as it delivered on the full potential of what could be from anywhere even in a highly regulated environment.
There was always an engagement with start-ups, and other change agents which one took back to the global organization – this enabled me to be a continuing change agent for the Group as well as the Global capability centers.
Life Lessons: Dreams – they can come true. Be willing to explore, open yourself to possibilities. Learn at every opportunity. Establish clarity of purpose, have the buy-in then relentlessly execute even in the face of adversity. Be tenacious. Stakeholder Management is vital and so is your network. Celebrate the journey!
This is a journey that has been a realization of a dream which is still evolving!
