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7 Questions with Manish Kumar
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7 Questions with Manish Kumar
Name: Manish Kumar
Current title: Vice President & Zonal Salary Head
Current organization: HDFC BANK LTD
An Innovative Leader with proven Track record and Having Professional experience of around 14 Years in the domain of Banking and Financial Services delivery in Business Development Product & Process Management, conceptualizing strategy, Initiative and Program, Compliance / Risk management/ Strategy & Planning, Business Development, Project Mgmt & Finance, Budgeting & Channel Development, Escalations Mgmt, Customer service & Operations Mgmt, Strategic Initiative, Product Development & Marketing, Analytic & Due diligence, Digital banking, Project Finance , Retail Branch Banking, Key Accounts , Asset crossell( Retail & Wholesale ), TPP products , Business Development - liability & Asset Products.
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1. What have you found most challenging as a CEO or executive of a large enterprise?
The most challenging thing according to me in any role is
apart from leading inclusion & diversity is setting the right expectation and then ensuring to meet those expectation with right stakeholder management and ensuring all effort for a best customer centric deliverables.
2. How did you become a CEO or executive of a large enterprise? Can you please briefly tell the story?
To analyze this is like standing in front of a mirror, I believe we need to focus on our core strength. It is the key for establishing myself as a thought-leader in whatever assignment I get . I am a staunch believer of Karma and also someone who believes there is always 'Yes' or a 'Logical yes 'to No. As we know Academic or Education gives you an Eligibility and It is your Skill set and Consistent performance which keep you employable.
I guess the way I was raised, in a multicultural, lower-middle-class small town in the Jharkhand neighborhood, makes it easier for me to be an advocate for diversity. and understood the importance of things and where the lesson was simple for success the basic stage to qualify for being in a race is that you have to be in TOP 5% of the League which is a result of a basic academic discipline and social accountability since childhood. I was fortunate to be Class monitor from class 1 till 10th and I believe that role has set the initial stage for me.
3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?
Well, I must say that my days are a lot more structured now than they were four & half years ago before I became a Father Having children has forced me to become more organized and plan ahead. I am someone who is quite happy with 5-6 hours of sleep and that is something I ensure and then Talking care of all task which I plan in stipulated time and everyday I ensure a CLOSE WINDOW policy for myself when I can conceptualize my thought process and make a plan for ahead.
4. What's the most recent significant leadership lesson you've learned?
We have witnessed the recent pandemic and few Lesson was like: A) You never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before by adopting a new normal more positively. B) Relevance of being a very observant Leadership and simultaneously understood again that A crisis demands faster learning. If you are paying attention, the individual leadership lessons to be gained in a crisis are the same as in normal times — they just move faster, like an advanced panacea course for all sort of problem.
5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?
One of the Best Book is "ATOMIC HABBIT" Provides a practical and proven framework for creating good habits and shedding bad ones. Drawing on scientific research and real-life examples, it shows how tiny changes in behavior can result in the formation of new habits and help you achieve big things.
6. How do you build leadership capacity in a large enterprise?
As We all know that "A stitch in time saves Nine" Doing right things at Right Time is the key and Leading by Example. Innovation - keeping the process in mind and demonstrating the right Leadership trait and following the same inspired others. If we convince on something we can make other convinced, so lead by example is the Way here.
7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a CEO or executive of a large enterprise so far?
Whenever you took a new assignment - The approach is critical and to execute those approach you need a framework which is openly or latently expected by others and sharing that vision and leading is always exciting - I ensure that to motivate team and lead by example by sharing my network / my knowledge and my supervisory learning with my colleagues and offer best practices for the ways in which organization should be leveraging insights from one another to ultimately help influence positive change in the world.