So what are the four or five key things that you would bring to the table?

Simple things like networking. For example, Anand Mahindra, wanted to meet Kishore Biyani. As we knew both of them we set up a meeting and from then on they keep exploring the potential to do business with each other. So we give the CEO a platform to build healthy relationships. Other than this, we bring in finance, lend more credibility and also help the CEO to hire senior talent.

How do you resolve a conflict with the CEO?

In our business nothing is cut and dried. I do not put any idea across immediately. I ruminate about it, think about the reactions of different people to it, and then come with the most unbiased way to put it across. In the first meeting we put the thought in the CEOs mind. Then we try to keep that idea alive by giving the CEO fresh inputs. For example, I may feel the markets are buoyant and that it is the right time for an IPO. But the CEO does not agree to it.

I cannot tell him that,' Listen we are telling you, you have to do an IPO this year.' The minute I take that stance a professional idea becomes a personality conflict between the CEO and me. I cannot take any conversation to that level. So we sit down and analyze the situation. We suggest that he takes advice from others also and keep the idea alive.

The other card that I use personally is to quote an anecdote. What is important is to give the CEO a perception that this is not a ego fight between him and me. We take care to convey that there is genuine professional reason behind the thought process and that the IPO will be done only when the CEO is comfortable. And it is a lot of hard work because you are dealing with the level of the mind constantly. You have to be sensitive not to get across the point as an ego issue. Quite often some other suspicions plague the CEO: 'Is she under pressure', or 'Is she trying to get an exit'. So I have to be careful that people do not develop misconceptions about my pressures.

-Poornima Subramaniam

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