Indian honchos go job hopping

NEW DELHI: India, Inc. is fast losing its corner-room stickiness. And we are seeing the rise of a breed of restless honchos with fast-declining longevity in companies. Gone are the days when a top management executive boasted of his long-lasting stint in his company. Today, it’s common to see honchos in their third job or more in a matter of 8-9 months.

Latest to make news is Munesh Khanna who joined DSP Merrill Lynch, his third job in 10 months. Mr Khanna had parked himself in Enam Consultancy for just 8 months after leaving as NM Rothschild MD. His is not an isolated case.

A few months ago, Rakesh Chopra, former country head, Convergys, left to head Genpact’s Wachovia Process. Mr Chopra was with Convergys for less than 8 months after quitting as country manager EXL.

Not long ago, Sunil Khera left Ranbaxy as the India operations director in less than 4 months, to join Wockhardt as president. There is also Cadbury’s Vidyut Arte who left only to come back almost immediately. Similarly Vikas Gupta, who recently quit Coca-Cola India to join ABP, has had stints in Yum and Coca-Cola, Atlanta.

While rising opportunities and money remain a big factor here, in many cases that ET studied, dissonance post-joining and transition issues cut short the top executive’s stint in the new company.

“Sometimes individuals don’t do the necessary homework and once they join, they discover organisations changing direction that fails to accommodate a new incumbent’s aspirations,” says Sanjiv Sachar, managing partner, Egon Zehnder.

There are other cases at very senior levels like those of Hari Mundhra, former VC, Wockhardt, who left the company within 9 months of joining Essar. Similarly, Rajan Puri, former CFO, Tata AIG Life, headed for Star in Indonesia after a less-than-6-month stint in the former.

The trend of top executives calling it quits within a few months of taking over is actually a trauma for both, the company as well as the person concerned, says Uday Chawla, managing partner, Transearch.

“It’s most likely to happen during the first year of joining when the new incumbent is not too committed, too vulnerable, and when the reality of the new set-up hits him, he succumbs to the pressures, maybe they need a mentor,” he adds.

Analysts say the phenomenon is only going to be much more frequent as fuelling the fire is money chasing a few good men. And a slew of opportunities are unfolding across industries.

So, when Raghu Pillai, former RPG Retail head honcho, landed himself at Reliance Retail after a few months’ stint at Pantaloon, it didn’t surprise many. The scale of the project was compelling and so was the offer, or so they say.