General Management Career Conversation

1. Career conversation on General Management
An IIMB NSRCEL & Goldman Sachs SupportedFirm

2. About me - Shekhar Tyagi
Education
• Indian Institute of Management
(IIM), Bangalore, MBA
• Trinity College and INSA Lyon,
MS Mechanical Engineering
• Indian Institute of Technology
(IIT), Delhi, B.Tech, Mechanical
Engineering
Background
• ~12 years in Medical devices
and Apparel manufacturing
• Six sigma Green belt- GE
• French language B1 level
(CEFR)
Personal
• Married, 2 kids
• Hobbies- Reading, playing
sports, watching documentaries
Philips- Dutch conglomerate
• CT Hardware in Bangalore
R&D center
• Specialization in Predictive
engineering using FEA,
CAD
GE Healthcare
• Imaging subsystems, X-ray
tubes and generators
design and development
• Cradle to Grave product
lifecycle
Shahi Exports
• Business transformation
spanning across
Operations, Sales and
Marketing and Planning
• Reduce Operating costs,
improve efficiency
Baxter
• Member Renal PMO
• Looking after Geographic
expansion of Peritoneal
devices and Digital
products

3. Why General Management as a Career
• All round business flavour
• Need for sharp People skills
• Promise of handling a P&L
• Cross functional engagement and management skills
• Potential to expand one’s horizon

4. What Companies expect out of General Manager?
• Sound temperament
• Multi-tasker
• Big picture player
• Ability to harmonize conflicts
• Expertise in at-least one function of choice
• Solid understanding of Finance

5. Challenges Faced in General Management
• Influence w/o resorting to authority
• Mutually conflicting goals
• Learn while teaching same people
• Prioritize almost daily
• On the job learning, no other formal methods

6. How companies shortlist resumes and Interview
• Look for all-round personality
• Prior experience matters
• SMEs tend to be overlooked
• Post MBA, Management consultants get priority
for General management roles

7. Key Success Factors during placement
• Critical SWOT analysis of self
• Clarity of mind over what you want is a must
• Not all companies have same definition of General
management, prepare for the firm not just the role
• Real business environment ≠ MBA environment

8. Leveraging 1-Year for a Career in GM
• 1- year MBA still in its infancy, not a silver bullet
• Focus on how different functions can co-exist in an
organization
• Prioritize learning of business models
• Distribute the formal learning in wide areas rather
than restricting it
• Your performance in the industry will decide future
of 1-year MBA

9. My Biggest takeaways from MBA
• Business trumps all else
• End is used to justify the means until compliance
is not a casualty
• Informed awareness of Finance is a must
• Selling your skill sets can be science not an art
• Business models need constant maintenance as
any fixed physical capital asset

10. How to shift to GM career
• From a Tech role- Little experience to make and
informed comment
• From a Non-tech role- Mostly through leadership
programs from on campus recruitment
• General Management is like Coaching, you are in
the field but off it. Others do your bidding, ability
to convince others matters a lot.

11. A Typical Working Day
• Meetings with cross functional leaders
• Presiding over (Non)Operational challenges
• Preparing for summary update to CXOs
• Reviewing KPIs of a function
• If possible, ruminating how to improve KPIs