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EXPERIENCE

Success story: The writer with Joe Benevides (right) and Peggy Smith.

Recently, the same Ford President, John Parker, revisited the new Chennai and other than the name change he was amazed at how much else had changed too! John is now among the top four people in Ford Worldwide; Executive Vice President of Asia and Africa regions, and he, like many other Fortune 1000 companies, was telling me how India was a big part of their plans again.

Renault, Nissan, BMW, Hyundai … so many auto manufacturers brought their foreign families and foreign investment into this state. We continued to house them, advise them on practical things like schooling, medical facility and spouse survival, cushioning the culture shock both ways with our intercultural training programmes.

And, as the business demanded, we set up offices in five other cities to become a pan-Indian company. Headquartered in Ford’s base of Chennai where I am also based, our other city offices helped expat anchor themselves in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore.

Now 12 years and 72 nationality clients later, we are quite the expatriate-needs experts in India. We have learnt to look at our own culture more deeply because of the questions asked by others and we have learnt best practices in the relocation trade from our mentors at the Employee Relocation Council. The ERC is a premier organisation for workforce mobility and HR professionals that is headquartered in Washington DC.

Attending their annual Global Workforce Symposium year after year, I benefited tremendously from the educational sessions and the networking opportunity. When I returned from a conference we would spend time training our staff in the office. As poet Maya Angelou says “When you learn, teach”.

At past conferences I was always the only one in silk saris of orange, fuschia or peacock blue while the rest of the relocation industry professionals from the U.S., Europe or Asia blended seamlessly in smart black and grey suits. I wondered about that… but held on steadfastly to two things.

First, I was Indian and felt best in my own attire and second, if they could be professionals, I could too. Many companies came to do business with us as a result of these conferences ranging from insurance companies like AMP in Australia to AIG in America, from Fidelity Investments to Intel. We delivered services maintaining professionalism yet keeping a personal touch. But we were always one among the 1000 plus attendees in that annual conference.

This year, however, things changed. In the ERC annual conference, it was our Indian company that stood out. There is only one thing better than being Indian….it is being Indian in the 21st century. And that too an Indian representing his trade in the world in the 21st century.

Peggy Smith, HR Head Microsoft from Seattle and President of Worldwide ERC this year, made a rather unexpected call early this year asking if I would co-chair the planning committee of the Global Workforce Symposium.

The purpose of having me co-chair the planning was to have a truly international flavour to an otherwise America-centric symposium given that over two-thirds of the attendees are American HR and Relocation professionals.

Along with my co-chair, the intelligent and experienced Joe Benevides of Paragon Relcocation, and the 24 other committee members we had invited from seven countries,

I spent three days in DC closeted in a hotel conference room. Even as strong winds blew away the cherry blossoms outside, we brainstormed topics and interactive sessions that all attendees would enjoy and benefit from.

That done we rehearsed through webinars from our different locations to get panels of speakers in synch with each other. It all came together amazingly last month in Denver Colorado with the theme “Scaling New Heights”.

Three hundred corporate companies — from Walt Disney to Arcelor Mittal, from Accenture to Boeing, from Bombardier to Nike — attended. The opening general session attended by 1600 people was overwhelming but I had rehearsed my opening speeches with a telepromteur (a delightful device where you can see the scrolling text but the audience sees it not and you simply appear like you are moving your head back and forth speaking to the whole room!).

Indian sayings and an inspiration from the Bhagwad Gita were lapped up by this international audience as they sought to understand our culture better.

My message is: if you are doing well in your trade, reach out to a partner or organisation, talk to them, offer to present your success story. The world is waiting and watching and is embracing Indian professionals and Indian culture with open arms.

This is the time to drop our timidity; it is time to step out into the world. Global recognition awaits any Indian business small or large that excels. If I can do it, anyone can. Globalindians ask and the world is ready to give you…

The writer is CEO, Global Adjustments , a relocation, realty and cross-cultural training company ( www.globaladjustments.com).

E-mail her at : globalindian@globaladjustments.com

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