Describe your life in three bullet points.

Attitude
Gratitude
Family

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

Look at my newsfeed and email on my phone.

If we came to your house for dinner, what would you prepare?

Indian food, in particular South Indian. My favorite is Masala Dosa, which is a type of stuffed dosa or fried pancake.

What is your hidden talent?

I can juggle.

What’s on your playlist?

Ed Sheeran.

What reenergizes you?

Working out.

What are you working on now that you’re most excited about?

Transforming the business at Heidrick & Struggles. As the firm that pioneered retained executive search more than 60 years ago, we have a strong brand and global capability in that space, especially at “the top”—searches for CEOs and board directors. Today, clients need more from us as they navigate tremendous change and disruption. We have developed intellectual property (IP) to help clients accelerate performance at the leader, team, and organizational levels, and launched a leadership consulting practice. We are integrating our capabilities in search and as a leadership advisor.

We also need to navigate disruption in the executive search industry, particularly in the use of analytics and artificial intelligence. We are taking our search process and IP and using it with our technology to interact with clients in a completely different experience. It is an exciting time to be in the talent and leadership business, and we see strong growth opportunities ahead because the world is not going to slow down.

What is the best advice you’ve received?

Be authentic.

What part of your job would people find most surprising/interesting?

Although I am the CEO of the business, I still spend a lot of time meeting and advising people. I am in a job where I have the privilege to meet with and get to know a large number of influential global CEOs and board members. As most of these meetings are confidential, I don’t discuss them. Some might find this aspect of my job very interesting.

What impact did Kearney have on your career?

On a personal level, Kearney helped me with a disciplined thought process and created some lifelong mentors and friendships. I try to connect with many of them via phone or over a quick lunch/cup of coffee, but it has become harder since I became the CEO.

And on a professional level, I had opportunities to manage some very complex projects at Kearney which really helped me as I took on responsibilities for our profit and loss management (P&L) and leading business units. Working through the complexity of managing a large team has helped me throughout my career.

And finally, your motto is:

Do the right thing.

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