The 3 Skills That Have Helped The Growth Of Indian-Origin CEOs

An interesting article noted the number of Indian-origin CEOs. Why are the numbers increasing and hopefully will stay high and open the C-Suite to the best leaders, whatever their gender, color, or orientation?

There are similarities between successful CEOs of tech-based companies and unicorn-entrepreneurs (UE). In both, you have to understand fast-changing, emerging trends and have the ability to lead through the tempestuous changes in those murky trends.

In my financing, interviewing, and researching of UEs, I found that UEs needed 3 foundational skills to start giant companies – technical, sales, and finance.

#1. Technical skills in emerging industries. Nearly every one of the unicorn-entrepreneurs took off in an emerging industry. To do so, they needed technical skills essential to the emerging industry. Sam Walton and Dick Schulze (Best Buy) knew retail and jumped on the emerging big-box trend. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had skills in the emerging personal computer industry. Mark Zuckerberg and Daniel Ek (Spotify) knew coding and jumped on the emerging online trends. Technical skills are essential to help a leader evaluate emerging technologies, improve them, and build businesses around them. Look at what Satya Nadella has accomplished when compared with his predecessor. By the time non-tech CEOs learn of killer technologies in emerging trends, it is often too late and all they can do is to acquire the high-tech flyers. And overpay. And fail about 70% – 90% of the time.

#2. Sales skills to make your case. Sales skills are key to entrepreneurs, especially at the startup stage when they cannot afford to hire experienced sales experts. Without sales, there is no venture. Products or services do not sell themselves. Sales skills are essential. Entrepreneurs who excel in sales have built unicorns from $375. But CEOs also need sales skills to sell their ideas, to connect with people, and to lead. It should come as no surprise to anyone that there is no shortage of people in India. And one of the highly valued skills is the ability to communicate, to sell yourself, and to stand out among the hundreds of millions surrounding you. And the fact that many learn English from childhood does not hurt in today’s global corporate world.

#3. Bootstrap finance skills to do more with less. For many from India, bootstrapping seems to come naturally. When resources are scarce, you value them highly. Finance skills are the easiest to learn — especially for those who have been technically trained and are comfortable with numbers. I remember thinking that finance was easy — especially after my engineering degrees. I have since learned that, in finance, the problem is not the math, but often in the inputs, the historical data, and nearly always in the output, i.e., the projections. Financial projections, especially in startup ventures and emerging industries, are nearly always wrong. So being frugal and knowing the real value and cost of a dollar, especially at emerging stages, does help to build successful giants.

Instead of wasting resources on circus-like, publicity-seeking, pitch competitions or viable products that are as accurate as a stopped watch (that shows the accurate time twice a day), it would be great if business schools, engineering schools, and all other schools focused on the skills and smart-strategies of unicorn-entrepreneurs.

MY TAKE: If you want to start on the proven path used by Unicorn-Entrepreneurs, learn the Big 3 Entrepreneurship skills to get started. It is not about your idea or your product or your service. Shark Tank is a farce in the real world of unicorn-entrepreneurship. Only 1% of 122 UEs succeeded due to the technology. 5% succeeded due to their strategy. But 94% succeeded due to their skills. These skills help to start unicorns, and/ or succeed in tech-based corporations. Then you need finance-smart skills to launch your venture and keep control of the venture, or to keep your job in a corporation, and finally corporate-development skills to scale up your venture after takeoff or become CEO of a corporation.