Sudhir Mattoo is a seasoned Human Resources (HR) professional with two decades of experience. He recently took on the position Chief People Officer at the Adani Group. Prior to joining Adani, Mattoo was with IBM. 

Throughout his career, Mr Mattoo has spearheaded transformative initiatives to modernise HR practices, leveraging digital technologies to streamline processes and enhance employee experiences. His global experience, having worked across diverse cultures, markets, and geographies, including Asia Pacific, Japan, Latin America, Middle East, and North America, has equipped him with a unique perspective on cross-cultural leadership and sensitivity. 

In an interview with a-connect, Mr Mattoo discusses the importance of understanding and appreciating cultural nuances within organisations, the unique Adani DNA, and the role of insights-driven decision making. 

How has living and working across myriad cultures and geographies informed your being and way of working?

Being culturally aware and sensitive helps build perspectives. Perspectives about people’s values helps understand the person vis-à-vis the words they speak or the actions they take in a situation. It makes one thing clear – a different point of view is not a disagreement, and our ability to appreciate and encourage difference of views on the same topic helps make us better decisions, which in turn helps the organisation, teams and individuals. In an organisation, culture is what you do when nobody is watching. 

How similar or different are these values, that guide people, across these geographies, cultures and even our Adani Group?

In Asian countries, we function as collective societies. We are collectivistic, wherein we value harmony and conformity in a group. In the west, it is more individualistic, valuing personal freedom, autonomy and achievements. This informs how people engage and operate.  

 And then there are cultures within cultures in each society and organisation.  If we think about our own workplace, we have four generations (Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z) representing our workforce and each generation has a peculiar way in which they understand, engage, get motivated and want to get rewarded. To find a balance between these generations is not easy but what binds us together is our Group’s purpose of driving “Growth with Goodness” – this acts as our North Star every day.

Dr Abhishek with his wife, Shivani. 

What has your journey been like with the Adani Group? What makes Adani exclusive, in comparison to other corporates? 

It has been an exciting year for me. What is amazing is the Adani DNA, which gives you the ability to make decisions and execute projects. In essence, it boils down to hum karke dikhatein hain. And ultimately, we are all partaking in national pride by being a part of the India growth story. We are leaders in setting the stage for India to be atmanirbhar. Adani Group provides a platform where every person can maximise their potential to the fullest and the compounding effect creates a momentum which makes our Group unstoppable.  

Can you tell us more about “Your Voice Maters” and “Career Conversations”?

It was our chairman Gautam Adani’s vision to engage all Adanians so he could directly hear from them. “Your Voice Matters” helped us to reflect on two things – what should we continue to do and what do we need to change. The three takeaways that the chairman addressed were:

1. For the first time, all employees across all grades and companies to have the opportunity to participate in performance-based variable pay as part of their compensation.
2. Employees and managers to have clarity on goals, that are measurable quarterly, so that they perform and deliver to the best of their abilities during the year.
3. Career conversations across the Group companies for the first time to ensure that we align organizational needs and employees’ aspirations.

Many Adanians aspire to make a difference through their work at the Adani Group. What advice would you offer them?

First, listen more than you speak – you are here because of your abilities but understand the Adani DNA, understand the context of the journey. Try and understand why things are the way they are, and finally how can you align yourself to accelerate this journey.

Second, strengthen your entrepreneurial mindset every day. Externally, we are seen as one large conglomerate firm but within each business unit/ subset/pod, we work like a startup. We are hands-on, we are here and now, we work with magical speed. If you want to go far, you must have the entrepreneurial mindset to own your piece.

Third, speak with candour but respectfully. It This will help you balance your own thoughts.

Fourth, be ruthlessly caring, it might sound like a paradox but learn the art of balancing how you execute the projects ruthlessly but also be caring towards the people you work with.

Being a leader you are someone a lot of people look up to – as a mentor and teacher. Who is someone that you look up to?

Our Chairman. Working with and learning from him is in equal parts humbling and inspiring. His ability to think 30-50 years ahead and in the same conversation, go to the minutest detail of any project – is beyond spectacular. His care for people is unparalleled and I hope all of us learn to emulate him.

Dr Abhishek meeting the 3-year-old Saarthak, a beneficiary of project SuPoshan, in Tirora, Maharashtra.