Leadership

A decade is a great event  
Especially when it’s well spent!  
And gratefully we do thank heaven  
That Adi’s celebrating seven. 

Adi to me is an elder brother,  
For good advice, there was no other.  
He always took the greatest care  
And in all things was very fair.

At school he was extremely smart,  
Excelled in all, except for art.  
For fame he never seemed to hanker,  
In SSC he was first ranker.  
Then Xavier’s college up to Inter.  
Then he had to contend with winter.  
As his next step was MIT,  
Where, when just twenty-one, you see,  
He was both Bachelor and Master.  
And few have ever done it faster! 

Once back home he started work.  
No matter what he’d never shirk,  
Just two crore was then the size.  
Adi set out to modernize-MBA’s were soon recruited  
And cars for managers were mooted.  
The marketing was revamped,  
And those who couldn’t change decamped.  
He introduced cost accounting  
And soon the sales started mounting.  
But hair dye was his greatest coup  
And over the years, it grew and grew. 
The nineties then brought quite a change  
The landscape now seemed very strange- 
With multinationals at the door  
We hardly knew what was in store.  
Pepsi and Coke bought all in sight.  
Should we sell or should we fight?  
We chose a path that’s in between.  
In hindsight now it can be seen  
That Indian firms that learnt to hone their skills,  
easily held their own. 

But then we thought that we should seek  
Strong partners or we would stay weak.  
And so we formed the odd joint-venture,  
Which proved to be quite an adventure,  
We learnt a lot and that’s for sure.  
It helps us still to endure.  
But when we got our business back  
We were rather off the track.  
But he was ready for the fight.  
And very soon he set things right. 
Though Godrej Soaps began to soar  
On market price we couldn’t score.  
Then our advisors thought it fit  
That Godrej Soaps should be split. 
GCPL came in to being.  
And Adi, very quickly seeing,  
The trend for better governance,  
Put in to place all at once,  
With lots of help from CII,  
Best practices that surely vie  
With the very best in the world.  
When our new stock was unfurled,  
It very soon began to fly And to this day it still stays high. 
Is his success because of skill,  
Or is it more his iron will?  
For Adi was always organized  
And punctuality was prized.  
By dusk his desk is very neat,  
His paperwork is all complete.  
Not agonizing is the trick,  
Decisions must be very quick. 
Although it now seems like a steal  
When Kotak offered him the deal,  
At no low price, but eighty crore,  
He had a week, no less no more.  
There was no time for diligence.  
With courage and intelligence  
He very quickly clinched the deal,  
Relying on his good gut feel.  
Not that he threw away all caution.  
He took the brilliant precaution  
Of ensuring he bought good wares  
By selling a small chunk of shares  
To Kotak and the firm’s M.D.  
Ah! What a clever strategy! 

And with this move so swift and bold  
The company came in our fold.  
And over time this company  
Well known as Godrej-Sara Lee  
Became a star within the group.  
For Adi this was such a scoop.  
And by and by when Sara-Lee  
Decided it would like to be  
An exclusively food company.  
We bought the shares of Sara Lee.  
We called it first GHPL,  
Soon merged it with GCPL.  
Since we had made a beeline  
To very quickly buying Keyline  
We got to know of other firms,  
Whose selling owners liked our terms.  
So Rapidol came in our fold  
And that success made us quite bold. 
All over Africa we spread  
With Darling we now forge ahead.  
And very soon our eyes went starry  
And so we bought Megasari!  
And LatAm also came our way  
With Argencos and Issue.  
The developing world’s our playing ground  
A strategy that we find sound.  
And Adi never seems to tire  
With frequent visits to the empire! 
Adi can’t stand the status quo  
All novel things he wants to know.  
And if he thinks that it is right  
He puts in all his will and might  
Behind the new initiative  
And with support that he can give  
We quickly learn the latest ways,  
Make sure the group sees better days.

But while he strives for the group  
The industry is in the loop.  
He’s always ready to lend a hand,  
Be President or take a stand  
With government on policy 
And he’ll persist till industry  
Gets exactly what it needs.  
And now he heads CII  
And I am sure it will fly high.  
Thus with conviction Adi leads.  
All who see him are inspired. 
For all he does, he’s never tired  
Where does he get the energy?  
It’s really not a mystery,  
Adi of course, is very fit.  
He doesn’t seem to want to sit.  
There’s not a sport, he hasn’t tried  
For he can even paraglide.  
He really loves to water-ski,  
Not on a lake but on the sea.  
And on a trip to Mt. Kailash,  
Although conditions were quite harsh,  
The mount was circled in a day.  
Most folks his age would say, “No way”.  
And none of us can fail to see  
That he is full of energy.  
He has set a rapid pace  
As he leads us in the race. 
Though all of us most surely know  
That we have many miles to go  
But still we’re sure it can be done.  
Indeed this race must be won. 
And if we stay on the proper way  
And never let our values sway,  
If all of us fulfil our roles We will surely reach our goals.  
A billion Indians, we can say,  
Will use our product every day  
And everywhere it will be seen  
That we are great, good and green. 
Now hearing praise can be quite tough,  
I’m sure by now he’s had enough.  
But all the same why don’t we stand  
And then give him a rousing hand?