Greetings from New Delhi!

I hope everyone is doing well! I had the opportunity this weekend to participate in the Pragati: India’s Golden Decade Conference in New Delhi, India.

I have not been to India for many years and I am very impressed at the progress India is making in almost all areas. As discussed at the conference, India is poised to double its GDP in the next 10 years and will become the third largest economy in the world after the US and China.

One of their many advantages is that the average age of India’s 1.4 billion population is only 29 years old, compared to 38 in China and 48 in Japan.

The conference attracted more than 200 participants, including Indian Chairman and CEOs (Roshi Nadar, Shri Subrahmanyam and Akash Ambani), entrepreneurs, Kellogg students, and alums. It was fantastic to spend time with many former students whom I had not seen in many years.

I had the opportunity to give a talk on values based leadership and legacy and moderate the panel below:

Values-Based Leadership and Building a Multi-Generational Legacy
Faculty presentation by Professor Harry Kraemer ’79 MBA

Followed by a panel discussion with:
Dinika Bhatia Dey, Founder & CEO, DRB Foods
Anant Goenka ’07 MBA, Vice Chairman, RPG Enterprises
Vijay Sankar ’98 MBA, Chairman, The Sanmar Group

Dinika is founder and CEO of DRB Foods, a leading company in India’s health food and snacking segment. One of the products is Nutty Gritties — and she gave me some samples 😁

Anant is vice chairman of RPG Enterprises with interests in areas including tires (CEAT), Pharma, and IT.

Vijay is chairman of the Shankar Group, a broad manufacturer with facilities in India, US, Mexico, and Egypt.

A wonderful surprise was Saumya, the amazing entrepreneur who cofounded Kheyti and served as a panelist at the conference. In my latest book, “Your Values-Based Legacy” I highlighted the work she and her team have done in bringing low-cost greenhouses to subsistence farmers in India.

In addition to the conference, I had the opportunity to join some of my Kellogg colleagues to visit several of the historic sites in New Delhi.

One of the interesting sites was visiting Gurdwara Bangla Sahib. It was amazing to see hundreds of volunteers preparing food for thousands of visitors at a holy site for Sikhism. We had the opportunity to visit the religious site and tour the kitchens.