'You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room,' says tech CEO John Lombard

Not being the smartest person in the room is not necessarily a bad thing, says John Lombard, CEO of IT firm NTT Data in the Asia Pacific. Sharing some of the biggest lessons he has learned in his career, he told CNBC that it was more important to be surrounded by smarter people.

“You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room,” Lombard said. "So remember when you're building a team to surround yourself by really smart people. Always employ people that you think are smarter than you are."

He also added that some of the best decisions that organisations have ever made happened when people challenged the status quo within the company. "People who haven't just accepted what everybody else says is the way we've always done things. And it's those smart people that will often do that. So, it's really important to always surround yourself with really smart people," Lombard told the publication.

Another lesson that the tech CEO said he had learned was to try and always be prepared for scheduled events. "You should never go into a client meeting unprepared or into an employee presentation or a townhall meeting without proper preparation. The greatest sign of respect you can give to anyone or any organisation is to show that you are prepared. Understand about their industry, understand some o the challenges they have been facing," he said.