In March 1998, a single conversation in a sunlit Dubai office set Sanjiv Mehta on a path that would redefine his career—and eventually reshape leadership across some of the world’s most complex markets.
A CEO’s Brew: Stirred with Passion, Purpose and Humbition captures this pivotal moment and the remarkable journey that followed.
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Crossing Borders: The Bangladesh Years
The evening sun stretched out into small pools of light inside the Unilever office at Jebel Ali in Dubai. Tom Stephens, the chairman of Unilever Arabia looked me, as always, in the eye. ‘Sanjiv,’ he said, ‘I have plans for you.’
I had joined the Dubai office towards the end of 1992. Five years had flashed by without me even realizing how much of a Unilever man I had become. A Unilever man, people will tell you, can be spotted a mile away. They are as comfortable in a small grocery store as they are in the boardroom discussing the strategy of a multibillion-dollar brand.
Working with legacy brands teaches you a lot. There is a sense of purpose that gets embedded in every function, and one realizes quite early on that there is no formula to building brands that last a lifetime. Every brand works differently in different markets, and I was beginning to understand the Middle East, its people and the relationships that the country had built with the company and its products.
However, to get back to that day in March 1998, I looked at Tom with a hint of anticipation. Tom had spent many years in the company primarily in the US; his towering presence by my side had helped me work through many challenges at the Dubai office. He was a quintessential Ivy League-educated American and, like me, a finance professional by training; his hallmarks were clarity of thought, rigour and the ability to join the dots. ‘By the end of the year, we want you to be on the board of a Unilever company as a Work Level 4 manager,’ Tom said, drawing out the words slowly in his typical American drawl. I could see Tom was serious and I could feel the weight of his words settling around me in the room. It was clear that there was an opportunity lurking in the moment, but there was also uncertainty and risk. In hindsight, this was a big moment, and it would unfold in ways that I would not have much control over, but it would change the way the game had to be played.
I looked at him intently and said, ‘Great Tom. I do look forward to it.’
Clearly, Tom had been thinking about this for a while, and he set the wheels in motion almost instantaneously. He reached out to the gentleman whom he knew would waste no time in getting things done. Guy de Herde was the human resources (HR) director at Unilever Arabia. His easy smile, warm handshakes and infectious laugh camouflaged a steely focus on the task at hand. Tom tasked Guy with the responsibility of looking for Unilever businesses that would soon require a Board member.
Within four months, the two men were back in my room. Are you ready, they asked, to pack your bags for Bangladesh?
New Beginnings, New Learnings
Is anyone ever ready for change? More to the point, was I ready to move countries? Again?
I grew up in Mumbai, a city that is an amalgam of islands. But it is also so much more than that—it is the financial capital of the country with a long and layered history of politics, business, and social changes.
There are numerous clichés attached to its name—the city of dreams, the city that never sleeps, the city whose streets are paved with gold and so on. For me, Mumbai, or Bombay as it was known when I was growing up, is endowed with a remarkably indefatigable spirit; there is nothing that can stop the city in its tracks. Floods, riots, bomb blasts, mayhem on its streets—whatever adversity is thrown at it, the city steps around it. It is a way of living and coping that Mumbai inadvertently passes on to all its citizens. Like a gift, it has passed it on to me too, I think, preparing me for all the challenges that came my way.
The other thing is that I grew up in a household of immigrants. My parents had moved under very different and highly difficult circumstances. They came from Lahore and Gujranwala in undivided India, and moving countries for a new job was hardly as daunting as what they had been through. I had grown up with stories about the homes that they left behind and the struggles that marked their early years in independent India. They had instilled a deep sense of pride in the post-Independence nation building that they had been a part of, and I think that has stayed with me right through my life. So, to answer the question of whether one is ever ready to move countries, it’s a yes and a no. One is never ready but then one can never be ready for such a move either.
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