Be That Village for Someone

Tiffany Pham

Hi, Bala, how are you doing?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Pleasure meeting you, Tiffany. Thank you so much. Looking forward to this conversation.

Tiffany Pham

Absolutely. Same as well. It's always a pleasure to see you and really looking forward to conversing about your life and career and your inspiring lessons.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Happy to. Thank you.

Tiffany Pham

Absolutely. Well, kicking things right off. Excited again to hear about your life journey. I'd love to hear more about where you grew up and your career along the way before you got to your chief officer role, of course.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

I grew up in India, a place called Madras, now called Chennai. It's in the southern part of India. And that's where I was born and raised. I started my career working for United Technologies. That's where I started my journey as an engineer. I started with UTC's Elevator Division. Then it was part of the UTC, now an independent public company, Otis Elevator Company. I started with Otis as a graduate engineer trainee, worked for Otis in India. I did a technology transfer stint for Otis in Malaysia working on a project at Kuala Lumpur, then the world's tallest building.

Tiffany Pham

How was that transition, by the way, from India to Kuala Lumpur? Did you have culture shock at all?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

The beauty of being an engineer is you're working with the machine. So irrespective of which part of the world you're living in, you're working with the same machine. The human dimension was very challenging. And that's where I came to understand and appreciate the importance of working with people, getting things done through people. And that drew me into management and leadership and ultimately as the chief officer today. But that transition happened while at Otis. So when I came back from Otis in Malaysia back to India, I went around the country in India training people on the new technology that was installed at the KL Towers. And one thing led to another: from training, I moved into management development, and lo and behold, management development was housed under human resources. Over a period of time I moved into human resources. So from Otis, I went to Coca-Cola in India.

Tiffany Pham

Was that intentional from your perspective, that move from training to management development to human resources, or was that someone recognizing that ability in you and asking you of that? Like how did that transition happen?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

It was definitely not planned. But someone who saw me do the training, someone who saw me in action talking about the new technology which Otis India was inheriting from Kuala Lumpur. And the stuff that was being done at KL Towers at that time was the latest technology, and it was a Japanese microprocessor technology that was being implemented in Malaysia, and no one in the world had seen it then, because still then no one had ever seen such a tall building. So when I came back to India to train people on the new technology, the head of management development saw me do the training and he saw potential which I did not see in me. And he gave me that opportunity. He gave me the platform.

Tiffany Pham

I love that.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

That's how the journey started.

Tiffany Pham

Amazing. That first believer.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Oh, that first believer. And I was blessed in my career, not just on the professional side, but also on the personal side, to have those believers. There was a school teacher. In fact, he ran the scouting program for our school, Mr. Victor. And he saw potential in me and he was the one who pushed me into study sciences. And that's how I got into engineering. My parents have had a significant influence on me, my sister, my brother, and now my family, my wife, and my boys. They believe more in me than I do.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. That feels very familiar with me as well. Family, a teacher, an early believer in career. It's so powerful to have those believers in these important phases and your formative phases. And so then you were saying you then went on to Coca-Cola.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

That's correct. So at Otis, I moved into management development. I was the safety and the training officer. From Otis, I moved to Coca-Cola to be the operations training manager for the India operations. And one thing led to another. I got married at that time. My wife was moved from India to the United States. She moved to AIG, American International Group. And I left Coca-Cola to start my career here from scratch in the United States. I joined a software company called Polaris and went to work for Avaya, the communications company, then went to work for Hewlett Packard, from Hewlett Packard to Xerox, and now the Chief Human Resources Officer of Greif. And that's been my journey.

Tiffany Pham

That's incredible. And so you were at Hewlett Packard?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Correct.

Tiffany Pham

Right before Greif.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Before Greif, Xerox. Before Xerox, Avaya.

Tiffany Pham

Exactly. Okay, perfect. And so when you were at Xerox, what was your title there? What was your last role there before that chief officer role?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

I was the executive vice president and head of business transformation for the organization.

Tiffany Pham

Incredible. Okay, I see. So throughout this timeframe, then you had different operations roles. I mean, you bring in so much different perspective, than engineering to operations to HR to training to, you know, again, all aspects of what a technology company might want and need. And then within Xerox, you were head of business operations and transformation.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Transformation. Absolutely right. I had HR for the technology business and business transformation.

Tiffany Pham

I see. I see. And so then what was that moment like, that transition then to the chief officer role? Did you get a call from Greif? Was it a search firm? Was it a mentor? How did this transition happen?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

The call happened through a search firm, when a search firm came knocking. Before that, the internal call that I could become a chief officer happened while I was at Hewlett Packard. I worked for an exceptional leader. Her name is Susan Kelliher. And she was my boss at Hewlett Packard. And she went on to become a CHRO not once, but twice, of different organizations. But it was Susan who told me that you need to think bigger than your current role.

Tiffany Pham

Amazing.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

At that point in time, I never expected that someone with a name like mine, a last name which is still unpronounceable for so many of my own friends, I never thought of being a chief officer in America.

Tiffany Pham

That's incredible. How do you personally pronounce your own last name so that everyone in our audience can listen to it and hear it?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Sathya Narayanan, is how you say it.

Tiffany Pham

Sathya Narayanan. It's a long name.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

In fact, my dad's name, I come from a part of India where we do not have a concept of a last name. So when I came here to this country, they asked me for my last name and I said, I don't have one. And they're like, okay, we know where you come from. Tell me what your dad's name is. That's how I got stuck with Sathyanarayanan. My name is Bala.

Tiffany Pham

That's incredible. What a beautiful heritage to know that piece of your history. And so then you ended up hearing from Susan, she believed in you and that she believed that you were capable of this, that you had incredible potential and that you should go for this. And so what was that journey like once you heard that, to have to start to believe in yourself? Was there any sort of leveling up that you had to do on your own, to start to realize that you should be the chief officer next?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Once she put the seed in me, she also nurtured that seed by providing me with the exposure beyond my day job at Hewlett-Packard. And she introduced me to folks in the industry. In those days, sitting CHROs and folks from various firms. She said, look, you need to attend that forum. You need to go into this conference. So she started nurturing it. And as she was helping me in that, I started believing more in it, because someone saw more potential. Just like Mr. Victor saw potential in me while I was in school, and here was someone who genuinely believed in me and I did not. I did this for Susan, I did not want to let her down. Just like I did not want to let my school teacher down. And you could relate to this experience. I started stepping up, and when the call finally came from a headhunter while I was at Xerox Corporation to become the Chief Officer, it just worked out. And once I got into Greif, met with the CEO, met with the board, met with the executive leadership team, it became clear that I was destined to get there. But that seed was sown by one individual, Susan Kelliher, who believed in me. And when I went to Xerox, I was also lucky to work for Darrell Ford, who found ways and means of giving me that exposure, and who found ways and means of tapping into that intrinsic drive I had to get me to do the stuff which I never believed I was capable of doing. So those things helped a lot.

Tiffany Pham

Thank you, Bala. I love that. And it resonates so much. It's actually one of my favorite things to hear. In hosting this Chief Officer podcast, I have the incredible opportunity and honor to speak with the top CEOs of the world, the top CHROs of the world. And the stories kind of align to, generally, the patterns and industry trends that we hear today. You know, 20% of the time, someone will tell us, our various guests, that they attained their chief officer position through a search firm, which aligns again with industry trends: 20% of the time these positions tend to be attained through search firms. And obviously as the leader of a search firm, Mogul, I'm proud to hear it. But my favorite times are the other 80%, when I get to hear from the guests that someone believed in them and could see that innate drive, and in believing in them, it tapped into that innate drive and helped them to step up and then helped them to realize their next steps and their next dreams and attain that chief officer role. And I love to hear the story of the mentor, the person. And that person for you, it sounds like, was Susan.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Absolutely correct. And I still continue to stay in touch with Susan.

Tiffany Pham

Oh, I love that. And she was creating that exposure for you. Were there other people from that exposure that you were therefore able to establish friendships with, and therefore started to support yourself as well?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

And that's where the journey started, right? And as they say, it takes a village to develop talent. It takes a village to build someone. And because I learned from some of the best, likes of a Kelliher or a Darrell Ford of the world, I want to be that village for someone else. I want to be part of that village to help develop the talent. But these role models, they paid it forward and they inspired me to continue to do that.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, incredible. And so when you were at Greif, what was the day like when you learned that you were selected as the chief officer? Was it a phone call, and who was the first person that you ended up informing? Was it your family? Who was it?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

The first person who I ended up informing was my family, and the first person who I informed was my wife. She was the one who believed in me. You know, I was telling you the story about her moving into the US because she found a job. We were engaged in India, both of us were engaged in India. And then her organization moved her from India to the United States. So she moved to the United States and she was reluctant to move to the United States because I was already working for Coca-Cola in India. Good job. And she was like, look, I've got the job, but can you move? And I was like, let me think about it. And she was like, look, I believe you will have more opportunities there. You've got to believe in yourself. But before I believed in myself, she believed in me. And then I took a chance by following her. And the day this job arrived, she was the first person I communicated. And she was like, look, I told you so. She was not surprised. I was surprised that I got the job. She was not, but she was happy, and I was genuinely happy that she was happy, and I was so pleased to share that news with her.

Tiffany Pham

That's incredible. That's amazing. So what was your first week like as Chief Officer?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

The first week was all about coming in, understanding the business and hitting the ground running. Understanding the key levers that could move this organization, the work that needed to be done, not just in terms of building the human resources function and stabilizing the HR organization, but more importantly transforming the organization, to find ways and means of ensuring that we found a way to deliver an inclusive and a world-class and engaged workforce to help the organization execute on the business strategy. And here we are: the last eight years, we went from a place where we were on the bottom quartile of colleague engagement for the organization to the top decile, not the top quartile, the top decile of colleague engagement as measured by Gallup.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, incredible.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Along the way, we not just moved engagement, we also moved the net promoter score of the organization. It's not just engaged colleagues, but also customers feeling a lot more engaged. And Greif has a net promoter score of 72, the highest for a B2B company in the packaging space. And that shows up. When you have engaged employees, the customer is appreciated and that shows up in NPS, and that ultimately shows up in your EBITDA, that shows up in your stock price. And here's the organization, a 149-year-old organization. The stock price is top quartile, the best stock performance ever in the history of the organization.

Tiffany Pham

Wow, incredible. That's amazing. And do you feel like that is one of the proudest accomplishments in your career, or when you look back upon your journey, what would you say is your proudest accomplishment?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

This is clearly one of the proudest accomplishments for me along the journey. There are multiple in every organization, but this, we were able to call a play on focusing on the colleagues so that we could execute on the business strategy and the business outcomes. We not just called the play, but we executed the play. And we showed the world that it is possible. It takes time. But you take great care of your people. Your people will do the right thing of taking great care of your customers. And if you take exceptional care of your customers, they will do the right thing by providing you with an opportunity to serve them again and again. And that will translate into the financial outcomes, which is what you're shooting for. But you won't get there if you do not do your fundamentals right, which is take great care of your customers. And for you to take great care of your customers, that starts with you taking great care of your employees, and we call them colleagues. And that's the reason why I use the word colleague engagement.

Tiffany Pham

I see, I love that. And what I love, the way you speak, I've always known and it's very important to me, that you're very visionary in the way you think, you're very long-term as well in the way you think, so you don't resolve issues with kind of short-term or midterm thinking, you're long-term. And so I love that about you and the way you address challenges. And I see that's likely why you're also one of the top CHROs in the US and the world, and obviously have been tremendously successful also as a board member as well, as a CHRO that's one of the few to hold a public board member seat. So I just think that's phenomenal, and I wanted to highlight that for you. And I'm curious, given that you're very, very visionary, how are you thinking about AI and the future of work in your company, in the industry? I wonder if you have any thoughts to share with the audience on that.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

I fundamentally believe AI is going to be a game changer. While you might not see proof points as we speak, there are multiple pilots that are going on real time at various organizations, there are multiple studies which say AI works, AI does not work. But the outcome of AI transforming the way we work in the future is here to stay. And that's a journey we are on. It's so easy for us to look at an AI intervention or an AI project and say, oh my goodness, you're not getting an ROI today, why would you invest that money? We should ask a different question. Rather than asking for an ROI on the AI investment, the question we should be asking is, what will happen if the company does not embark on an AI journey? That's a bigger risk than not taking the opportunities which AI provides us. It will take time for us to see the outcome of that intervention. But we are starting the journey by ensuring that we train our colleagues on adoption of AI, making them comfortable with use of AI, and finding ways and means of helping them leverage AI to augment their work on a daily basis.

Tiffany Pham

Yes, absolutely.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

We're not starting from a place of, use this technology so that it could replace your job.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

And if that, people are not going to, they're going to be averse to using it. We're talking from a place of, leverage this technology to help you do your job better. Look at your job as a whole and look at all the tasks which you're doing inside your job and see what tasks you could outsource to AI so that you can take that time and use it more productively to do your job better. And once that mindset sinks in, then they're very comfortable leveraging AI to delegate some tasks so that they could focus on getting their job done better, faster, more effectively and efficiently, in a way in which they could learn and grow because of AI. And that mindset, that thinking has to come in, and we as leaders will have to embark on the journey by showing proof points of how to do it. And the first proof point is, as leaders, you and I need to start using AI in our day-to-day life. It's not just prompting, it's not just asking AI to write something for us. It's much more than that. It's much more than that in terms of leveraging AI to make your job better using the skills in the AI. How do I feed something? How do I automate it? It's not just AI as you see it. It's how do you build an agent? I've built an agent for my own self. I've actually built a digital twin for myself. It's called BalaBot.

Tiffany Pham

Oh, I love that.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

BalaBot is available inside my organization, but any of the colleagues in the organization can go have a conversation with the CHRO, which will talk to you as if I'm speaking to you. So when I role model that behavior of leveraging AI to augment their work, leveraging AI to make their work better, you have so many colleagues in the organization follow. Not just use of AI, not just use of agentic AI, not just use of embedded AI. They will need to get more comfortable with it and look at AI as there to help them, not to replace them.

Tiffany Pham

Oh, great points. I loved so many of the points you just made, you know, for employees adopting that mindset of how it really helps them, augments them, and as a leader, not necessarily having the anxiety at the moment of connecting things to revenue immediately, but more so reminding yourself that there's consequences to be had if not adopting it now. So less so, again, that connection to revenue and more so right now, the consequences of not doing so. But I love your last point as well, of being the role model, an example in this. I took that to heart yesterday. So, Mogul, we're Executive Search, we're also training for a lot of the Fortune 1000. And that includes leadership training, of course, which is very evergreen. Otherwise, it's AI training as well. So yesterday, I did AI training for employees across a Fortune 25 company. And I actually personally led the sessions across those organizations, this particular one at least. And I found that it was really helpful to actually provide the personal example, to leave them with kind of this final piece of inspiration at the very end. I shared, you know, as you create all these repeatable workflows, you go back to the same chat, you keep doing that same task, and then that chat will become very knowledgeable about that specific task that you're doing on a recurring basis. And over time you can create multiple chats, right? And across each one of your repeatable workflows, your recurring tasks. And over the course of one, two months, you might get eight repeatable workflows pinned across your AI platform. Over the next six months, I arrived at around 20. And now year to date, over the course of 10 months, let's say, after pinning all my recurring tasks across all the roles I hold and all the things I do, I'm currently at 35 repeatable workflows pinned across my platform, on Copilot, on Claude, or GPT, et cetera, 35. And I just thought it was really helpful for the audience to hear on a personal level the numbers I'm at. If I'm one of the ones who is training hundreds of Fortune 1000 organizations across hundreds of thousands of employees, and I'm considered one of the leaders in this space, and here's the number I'm at. I felt like it gave a lot of reassurance and kind of inspiration on where to land at. Anyways, I very much therefore agree with you on us as leaders serving as an example, being a role model in this space and adopting it ourselves. I love that you built your own digital twin. That's incredible. You're actually one of the few to ever tell me that. So that's amazing. At the top levels in the C-suite. And I also thought it was really helpful to share with the audience yesterday, and I'm sharing it also on this podcast for everyone's benefit, that as a leader, I run these organizations, I used to go to sleep regularly at 2 or 3 a.m. I know that's not sustainable. I know I don't preach it for anyone else to copy. But now with AI, I don't sleep past 2 or 3 a.m. anymore. I can say that. I'm sleeping before midnight. So AI is truly really transformative and life-changing in so many positive ways. I just felt like sharing that as a leader too can really show people how it's transformative in many of the right ways as well, even though there may be some fears out there.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

That's a fantastic example, right? Because AI is here to augment. AI is here to help. Any technology for that matter, if that does not help life get better for the users or the organization or the firm, that technology is useless. But for us to leverage the technology to help us, we need to learn the technology. The challenge with leaders is leaders are not used to doing stuff. They're used to delegating it and getting people to do it. And for the first time in history, we have a technology where leaders will have to use it, role model it, so that they could help their teams become so much more smarter and get everyone to embrace it. And role modeling behavior has to start right at the top.

Tiffany Pham

Exactly.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

And that's a great example.

Tiffany Pham

Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. And one of my final questions to you is, what advice would you give to a leader who is that one step below the chief officer role and wants to be more like yourself and become a chief officer?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Two things. So one is they want to be the chief officer, right? So you said that's where they are, which means they have the will, the will to be the chief officer, which means they have the ambition. They also need to have the energy to translate that ambition into an outcome, and that takes energy, that takes commitment, and they should be comfortable putting in that energy. And they need to be absolutely focused to get to the chief officer job. So all those things, ambition, energy, and the focus will come under the will. Along the way, the will, they also need to have the skill. They need to constantly keep building the skill to be ready. Because before the title came to me, or for anyone before the title goes to any individual, they will have to walk and talk and behave that way by demonstrating that they already have the skills. It's not just the technical skills of what the job demands. It's about their ability to work with people, the ability to work through people, the ability to read a room, the ability to understand what was not just being said, but also what was left on the table, unsaid, but you find a way to connect the dots. And if you build those skills and you focus on your will, which you already have, then when that opportunity knocks, when that headhunter knocks, when Mogul calls with the chief officer, you're not just ready to take the interview, but more importantly, you could go hit the ground running from day one.

Tiffany Pham

Wonderful advice. Absolutely. And now can I do a 30 second rapid fire with you?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Please, fire away.

Tiffany Pham

Okay, perfect. Rapid fire first. Favorite Indian dish?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Favorite Indian dish: Mughal biryani.

Tiffany Pham

Amazing.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

You've got to taste it. Once you taste it, you are addicted to it for life.

Tiffany Pham

Love that. Favorite way to spend downtime with your family?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Going on a drive with my wife. We will drive for 30, 35 minutes. Both of us will never say a single word in that journey. But we would have had a great conversation. Being together makes a difference.

Tiffany Pham

Oh, amazing. And final rapid fire, favorite way to keep yourself informed of the latest news and industry insights and trends?

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Multiple things. On a daily basis, it's the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and the Financial Times daily. On a weekly basis, it's the Economist. There's not a weekend which goes by without reading The Economist. In addition to that, you've got your Fortune, you've got your McKinsey Quarterly, you've got MIT Sloan. They stopped publishing the magazine. It's all now electronic. Then on a monthly basis, it's the Harvard Business Review, your alma mater, which just does a phenomenal job of keeping us informed about the big picture. Along the way, you've got to catch up with the BCGs and the Bains and the McKinseys through your various industry forums, you get your various conferences and sessions which you find a way to get your little nuggets that helps you stay aware of what's going on. Does it make you complete? No, but at least it tells you things that are going on and you realize that there is so much more you need to know. And the pursuit of that knowing journey is what keeps you going.

Tiffany Pham

Absolutely. So much wisdom here. Thank you so much, Bala. What a wonderful conversation. You're such an inspiration and it's been such a delight speaking with you today.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Oh, definitely always a pleasure. Great catching up. Thank you.