Newsletter from Crossmentors

Dear Leader

It is indeed a pleasure to present to you this first newsletter from Crossmentors.

The objective of this newsletter is to share some relevant insights – from our mentors as well as the larger world- that might be useful as we navigate the interesting times. To aptly describe these times, with Mr Trump wielding the tariff trumpet, and Mr Altman adding a new personality to an even more effective ChatGPT 4o, I can only borrow from the eloquent Mr Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…..”

At Crossmentors, our core purpose is to help leaders achieve their potential and grow, empowering them to lead with confidence, purpose, and impact- enabled through mentoring-led development approaches. Our mentors have decades of experience, having been through many challenges, and they want to bring that practical wisdom for the benefit of future leaders

Take for instance the debate on customer centricity vs employee centricity. Srikant Gokhale, with decades of retail experience as a CEO, and who went on to teach about emerging market retail at BerkeleyHaas and Northwestern, shares this insight that in retail, employee centricity has been winning. He has looked at many case studies across the world, in very different contexts, to come to this conclusion. Do check out his perspective here: Why does Employee Centricity Matter?

Similarly, digital transformation has been on the plate of all organisations, big or small. Even organisations that are ‘born digital’ have challenges of scaling, as they evaluate platforms and network effect, and the impact of AI. K Harishankar, having led Digital transformations across two global organisations, explains that this is one area where experience truly matters, and where mentoring can help transformation leaders in their programmes. Check out his piece where he lists all the digital dilemmas, and concludes that there nuances we should be cognisant of: Digital Transformation for Enterprises

Here is an interesting article from BCG. While only 33% of transformations are truly value accretive, transformations commencing during periods of uncertainty and slowdown are generally more successful. It explores this paradox and lists out ten factors for successful transformations, here: Transformation Paradox: Growing When Growing is Tough | BCG

There has been a lot of talk of GenAI- but overall corporates here have been slow to adopt it, except in limited areas, whereas each of us as consumers, more so students, have been using Gen AI. There is this example of a global FMCG firm that got its employees to have Copilot and other tools, and then asked their marketing teams to cut headcount by 20%! McKinsey has done a study of how companies are thinking about introducing Gen AI- how they decentralise processes, create teams that drive adoption, how they manage risks etc. It’s a quick overview of the scenario: The State of AI: Global survey | McKinsey

Meet your mentors

This newsletter also gives us an opportunity to get you up close with our mentors - understand a bit more about them and what mentoring means to them.

Kimsuka Narsimhan has had a brilliant career in finance across HUL/Unilever, Pepsico and Kimberly Clark and is currently on the Board of Bharti Airtel Ltd. Do check out her profile here: Kimsuka Narsimhan | The Crossmentors

In her own words: ‘In the course of our careers, we have all had good mentors, occasionally very good mentors and if we are very fortunate, great mentors. I have been very fortunate multiple times in my career!

When I took on my first CFO role, I approached a senior industry professional who had done many CFO roles in his career and asked if he would mentor me through my first six months in role. Happily for me, he agreed. I still remember and value some great insights that he shared with me on many typical problems faced by a corporate CFO - bets on Growth vs Profitability, Short vs Long-term, business vs function and so on. What made his sessions compelling and memorable were the following:

• he invested the time to listen intently, understand my perspective and was never dismissive of any of my thoughts or views

• his guidance was based on specific examples and real-life inputs without resorting to generalities

• he offered support without judgment; he was there to advise or guide and not direct

Most importantly - he was somebody who conducted his career with integrity and purpose. Both means and ends inspired me hugely. As a newbie CFO, I couldn’t have asked for more!

This mentor and many others have in turn inspired me to pay it forward and help leaders magnify their impact. And for me, every mentoring assignment is a powerful two-way learning experience!’

Aside from her professional interests, Kim is a writer of detective fiction- she has published two books and is hoping to do a few more!

You can read about all our mentors here: Mentors | The Crossmentors

It’s just been a month since we came together as a collective of mentors, and we are happy to see the positive interest in what we offer- impactful, business context focused, structured mentoring to develop leaders. Do reach to us at connect@thecrossmentors.com if you want to learn more,

With best regards

Team Crossmentors

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