‘A leader’s role is to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present’
Insights from Indra Nooyi’s memoir ‘My Life in Full’, on leadership in a world “where authority and brilliance, to many people, still look like an older gentleman”
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
My five summer books of 2021
Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna's work on gene editing; the courage to stand up for what's right; which habits will stay, which will change; adaptive leadership; and giving your career a different direction
The 10 best business and leadership books of 2020
An inside look at US presidency, leadership, changing trends, and life after the pandemic
‘Trust is not a matter of morality, but of predictability’
Predicting behaviour isn’t rocket science, say Robin Dreeke and Cameron Stauth in their book, ‘Sizing People Up’. It is a social science, and requires you to apply the right equation of logic, strategy, scepticism, observational skills, and the ability to accept unwelcome truths
How to live better into old age
In their book ‘The New Long Life’, Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton say, as individuals and as a society, we need to reimagine work, career, learning and relationships, among other things. And both the young and the old will need to share the burden and opportunities of longer lives
My five summer business books
A history of GDP; pursuing social value; inside Samsung; how longer life is redefining life, learning and work; the four-day work week
For good leadership, principles need to be a notch above the rules
Technology is changing the rules of business. But business leaders aren’t skilling themselves for the new world. And without principles, the company won’t go anywhere
What you can do in uncertain situations
Three great books on handling uncertainty
Anticipating inflection points
Insights from Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath’s book ‘Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen’
The global trends to watch in 2020
Insights from The Economist’s report ‘The World in 2020’