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Passing the mantle

Sarwar Ahmed
IT was time for departure. As our four-and-a-half-year son Yazdaan walked with me hand in hand, down the airport hallway to the car concourse at John F Kennedy Airport, New York, to join his waiting mother, uncle and aunt, I kept repeating, I'll be back soon. He kept on asking, how soon? Couple of days, I mustered to say. As soon as he got in the car, he dropped the window glass, reached out and grabbed my hand.
His inconsolable crying was sheer agony as was the attempt to pry my hand loose from his surprisingly strong grip. As his mother pulled him in and got the window up, the car pulled away. I had a glimpse of him climbing the backseat as he looked out frantically from the rear window. That one minute episode sealed my decision to leave 31 years of corporate life in Syngenta and its legacy companies and return soon to the love and affection of our son and family.
Life's priorities change. When you are in your fifties, the company of your family takes precedent over your corporate ambitions. Their love, affection and being together happen to take the number one seat. However, early on in my career, priorities were different.
1981: Having completed my MBA internship in Ciba-Geigy, I was immediately offered to join the company. Early in the career ladder, I used to work in a work environment conducive of creativity and fun, and the hours would swiftly fly by. Invariably and regularly late, 1 would come home to a lonely wife who would wait patiently, and over the years had become a habit for her.
My career progressed with the long hours. The passion for work was imbued by my mentor Georg Wyss, our managing director. He made work fun and enjoyable. We were at the nascent stage of building the agricultural chemicals industry which had transitioned from the public to private sector. There was so much to do. Along with the functional responsibility, Georg had sensed my passion for
training and development. He made me head of training and took me abroad for training workshops which 1 replicated back in our local company.
1986: As spring turned to a hot and sultry summer, our eldest son was born, a joy for us. We used to live on the top floor of a five-storey building. Even in the 1980s, there was water scarcity and we had to collect water in buckets in the middle of the night, a ploy the landlord used to ensure that he had enough water while most of his tenants slept. There was no respite from the summer heat as we felt like toast on the top floor. To give space to my wife and son on the bed in the sweltering heat, I used to sleep on the floor. One night, 1 woke with a start as 1 found our son in my outstretched hands as he had rolled off the bed. It was indeed the work of angels who had made me stretch out my hands in my sleep.
Like a snakes and ladders game, with each year, I climbed up further in the career game, early on climbing the ladders to new responsibilities. The snakes too appeared in various forms over the years from challenging authority, politics behind your back, to outright fraud.
Early on, I did a stint in marketing communication, then financial planning and control, and went on to set up the HR department for the company.
By then, Georg had gone. The long hours took its toll on Georg as his wife left him, leaving him devastated. He never recovered from the shock, took to drinking heavily to drown his sorrows, and had to return back to Switzerland. That was a sobering effect as we realised the importance of spending time with the family. Georg passed away at an early age of 54.
1987: HR is a positive learning experience and is a critical function in an organization. This is where I had my first 'snake' experience — a senior manager tried to frame me for an obscure wrongdoing which had not even occurred, all because I did not please him with a recruitment decision. I learnt fast — you cannot please everyone and people
will do their best to pull you down given any opportunity. So don't give any opportunity. Be transparent in your work.
1989: Our twin boys were born as I moved on to head crop protection marketing. An avid fan of Kotler, I tried to follow by the book. It took me several years to unlearn and realise the only way to succeed is when you talk and intimately listen to customers. We changed our whole communication strategy based on this realisation, which eventually led us to win a Syngenta global innovation award.
1991:1 was made head of the agro business at the age of 34.1 had several senior managers reporting to me, a cultural anathema. A fast paced drama unfolded during the announcement with the inevitable fall out of some leaving the organisation. It was during this period as head of the agro business when I got tested in several ways. The first introduction of VAT came into effect. With that, we could not affect price increase to cover the newly
introduced VAT, leading to a loss and an alarming summon to our Basle head office.
Face-to-face with Peter Schatzle, responsible for Asia, he picked up a sheet of paper and waved it in front of me. Sarwar, this is your best friend in Basle, he said, as he waved the sheet. This is the income statement of your business. If you are in the black with the expected profit, no one will bother you. If it turns red... he kept on smiling and kept on waving the sheet as his voice trailed away. Lesson learnt. Fortunately, VAT on agriculture was withdrawn and the business was back in the black before too much damage was done.
The other major test came with the discovery of renal failure of a young colleague's wife. The company did not allow the kind of medical facilities we have today. We pooled in personal funds to help her with her weekly dialysis. Desperate for funds for a kidney transplant, I wrote to my senior colleagues in Basle. Their prompt humaneness in sending the funds led her to live
with a transplanted kidney for the next decade and bearing two lovely children.
It was during this period we transformed into an IT enabled organisation with Noor Chowdhury setting up the software in running our business at the sales centre level. Each IBM PC at cost Tk 125,000 then. We bought internal modems that cost Tk 50,000 each. Unfortunately, we could never use the modems as the telephones then were difficult to dial in to Dhaka, and the crackling noise would drop the line easily.
1996: Ciba became Novartis. The first Novartis launch meeting of business heads was held in Bermuda. As we returned, I caught up with Dan Vasella, Novartis' CEO, at New York Airport to shake hands with our new leader. Two burly bodyguards moved in to make sure there was no mischief as they oversaw the chit-chat we had in the airport hallway.
2000: Our daughter is a year old when the formation of Syngenta is
announced and so does the Bangladesh government's announcement to ban certain class of pesticides. Our business was hit as we lost 40 percent of our business with this announcement. We quickly focused on the remaining portfolio to bring back the business to a sustainable level by 2003. With Syngenta's announcement, I was made managing director in 2001. We introduced innovative marketing programmes like a simple and unique way of communicating with farmers, establishing an exclusive channel and consolidating the crop protection and seeds businesses which led to steady organic growth and has set a trajectory of further growth, well into the future.
Yazdaan comes in our life, unexpectedly in 2007. Sometimes, things happen which gives you a sense that there is a higher order which controls events, not us.
2009 saw the establishment of a learning and development centre in Bogra, a dedicated training facility to improve agricultural knowledge of our retail outlet owners, who are the first contact for farmers seeking advice for their crop problems. Their advice is improving the qualitative aspects of Bangladesh's agriculture, avoiding the misuse of agricultural chemicals and improving farmers' productivity.
As I did the rounds one last time, meeting our distributors around the country to say good bye and to introduce my successor, I did get to reflect on the 31 years of my life, being in the service of agriculture in Bangladesh. If Bangladesh today has tripled its crop yields since its liberation, I do feel we've played our part in this remarkable journey of ensuring food security, and that people do not go hungry.
It is indeed with a great sense of satisfaction that 1 pass on the mantle of leadership to my worthy replacement, Sazzadul Hasan. That I have a competent and dynamic successor has made it much easier to say goodbye to Syngenta and Bangladesh's corporate world.
The writer is the former managing director of Syngenta Bangladesh.