The principles of excellence
Insights from sportswriter Sally Jenkins’ book ‘The Right Call: What Sports Teach Us About Work and Life’
D Shivakumar
Operating Partner
Advent International
Shivakumar is Operating Partner at Advent International. Before this, he was President (Corporate Strategy and Business Development) at Aditya Birla Group. Earlier assignments include: Chairman & CEO at Pepsico India and prior to that, Managing Director at Nokia India. Before joining Nokia, he worked with consumer electronics maker Philips and top consumer goods firm Hindustan Unilever. He is an engineer from IIT Chennai and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.
Shivakumar has written three books: Reflections - a collection of Shivs articles; The Right Choice - Resolving Ten Career Dilemmas; and The Art of Management. The latter two are business bestsellers.
My contributions
71 articles written
Why being process-driven trumps being results-oriented
Insights on high-performance, distilled from Dr Dana Sinclair’s latest book
My 6 best business books of summer 2024
The best books of the year so far, on being better, power of rituals, bad leaders, thriving, and being super communicators
Eight best business books of 2023
An annual round up of the most memorable books of the year
The risk taker
What makes Elon Musk tick? Insights from the biography by Walter Isaacson
My six summer must-read books of 2023
FF Life: My choice of the 2023 summer books is reflective of the times we live in and the key topics on executives’ minds
12 Deadly Sins That Bedevil Incumbents
Here’s a pattern that I’ve observed throughout my career: incumbents mostly lose; they somehow survive but don’t thrive. An incumbent growing faster than the market over a decade is more an exception, rather than the rule.
A personal brand is a must
It is the intersection of what you say about yourself and what others say about you
The Top 10 business and leadership books of 2022
Books about a fearless industrialist, building a great culture, regret and fulfilment, building careers, world strategy, reinventing work, and becoming a strategist
Top Ten books of 2021
This year’s list reflects and helps us decode a lot that has changed since the pandemic