Out of the comfort zone
If there had been any “big historic moment” in his life, Mr Dhirendra Shantilal believes it would have been when he made the choice to skip university.
If there had been any “big historic moment” in his life, Mr Dhirendra Shantilal believes it would have been when he made the choice to skip university.
Armed with only an A-Level certificate, he ventured into the daunting world of business with an equally inexperienced partner to set up a small recruitment firm in 1979. The going was tough, but they persevered and after more than 10 years, Business Trends had made a name for itself in Singapore, recognised as a promising local enterprise.
By the time it celebrated its 20th anniversary, the firm had 17 offices in six countries and was making about SS$90 million in revenue annually. It was then sold for an estimated S$20 million to S$30 million to NASDAQ-listed Kelly Services in 2000. Mr Shantilal went on to become Vice-President and, later, Senior Vice-President at Kelly Services, responsible for the company’s operations in the Asia-Pacific and subsequently Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. He helped grow the business to earn US$400 million (S$506 million) in annual revenue for the Asia-Pacific region.
Then 18 months ago, the veteran recruiter left his comfortable place in the company — and found himself in the somewhat amusing position of having to write a resume for himself, for the very first time, at the age of 56.
But it was a necessary move for Mr Shantilal, who explains: “I always tell people this: If you stop having fun at work and you stop learning at work, it’s the day you quit.”
The drive to learn something new and embrace challenges saw him take on a position at technical recruitment firm Fircroft about five months later, where he is currently Board Director of the United Kingdom-based group and its Asia-Pacific Head.
Just yesterday, the company reported a turnover of S$1.7billion in the last financial year.
The eloquent 57-year-old enthuses: “I’m excited every morning because there are so many new things to do. I know recruitment inside and out, but what am I learning? I’m learning the natural resources sector, the oil and gas, the LNG (liquefied natural gas), that’s all new stuff to me.”
HURDLES WERE ‘OUR BEST MBAs’
For one who so passionately believes in learning and hard work, Mr Shantilal recalls, with some fondness, the challenges — he calls them learnings — he and co-founder Laletha Nithiyanandan faced when starting Business Trends.
“Every time we had an incident, made a boo-boo with partnership … we learnt something from it,” he says over lunch at LaBrezza at The St Regis Singapore. “Those were really tough years, but they ... taught us many things — that every dollar counts.”
For instance, he shares, “nobody gave you grants” in the late ’70s and ’80s. So to keep the company going, the founding members went without a salary for the first few years, taking only a “small allowance” of S$300 to S$400 a month.
Then in 1985, the company went into a joint venture in a bid to expand into Malaysia. It collapsed in two years.
“One day, he (the Malaysian partner) said to us that he’s taking over our business,” recalls Mr Shantilal. The matter was eventually settled out of court. The team tried a second time — only to fail again when the second partner decided she “wanted to do something different”.
Learning from the experience, they finally decided to open in Malaysia without any partners. “That was a success,” says Mr Shantilal. Business Trends went on to open offices in Jakarta, Thailand and Bangalore.
Such lessons were “our best MBAs”, declares Mr Shantilal, who earned his formal Master of Business Administration (MBA) in the early ’90s at the University of Durham. This came after he studied for a Diploma in Marketing while running Business Trends — it was hard work studying at night and working in the day, but it strengthened him, he says.
S’POREANS ‘MUST GET OUT THERE’
Mr Shantilal, who has just launched Fircroft’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, now oversees hiring for multinational corporations across 12 countries in the region.
When asked how Singaporeans can compete in a global workforce, his answer is straightforward. As a recruiter, he looks at a person’s skills and experiences. “It’s not about Singaporeans or foreigners … It boils down to an individual, their personality and their experiences and exposure.”
“Have they travelled? Are they worldly? Are they knowledgeable?” he lists.
One of the biggest challenges, according to chief executives, is that they cannot get middle managers to run their overseas operations, he says.
Urging Singaporeans to get out of their comfort zone, he stresses: “If they really want to become global leaders, our Singaporean workforce has to get outside exposure. They cannot sit inside Singapore and say, ‘I know it all’.”
To that end, Mr Shantilal suggests starting young. He champions the idea of getting undergraduates to take a gap year to work abroad, then return to complete their studies.
Many students who have worked overseas are more willing to get out there, he says. And in the event these Singaporeans choose to migrate — “we’ll lose two but gain back eight”.
Companies, on the other hand, need to look at how to fast-track young employees and send them overseas to work, he adds. In Fircroft, for instance, young graduate hires in the UK are sent to the Middle East, Thailand and Australia.
“The other thing that companies need to do is create rotations. Move people around inside the organisation. And perhaps move people geographically as well so that you create different exposure and experiences.”
When employees get married and have children, it makes them less mobile, he says. And while there are always international schools for children, the challenge is when both spouses are working. “I don’t know how to solve (that),” he laughs.
A PROUD PAPA
Mr Shantilal is an expressive man, candid in his thoughts and animated as he broaches topics close to his heart. One of these topics is recruitment; the other, family.
He beams with pride when talking about his two children — now 23 and 20 — and compliments his wife for bringing them up well. She left her job as VP of a kindergarten to take care of their children when Mr Shantilal was travelling frequently for work. But he jovially points out: “If my wife had said to me, ‘Dhiren, stay at home to look after the kids, I’ll build my career’, I would be okay with that too!”
Having lived apart from his parents as a child, he values keeping his children close to him. (There’s no such thing as taking a holiday without the children.)
“From the age of 10 to 20, I only saw my parents in the flesh once,” he reveals solemnly, recalling how his father, who died of a heart attack when Mr Shantilal was 26, would write monthly letters to him.
Born in Singapore, Mr Shantilal had returned to India as a young boy with his parents. But when he was 10, he was sent back to Singapore to study and live with his grandparents.
While Mr Shantilal is no doubt a family man, when asked about his thoughts on work-life balance, he points out realistically that sacrifices have to be made to build a career.
“You’ve got to make some sacrifices and you need a family that understands the sacrifices you’re making,” he states, noting that “what happens at home ... will affect work”.
He adds that the onus is also on each person to carve out time — quality time — for family. “It’s not the company’s role to create work-life balance. I don’t believe in that,” he stresses.
Having accumulated an array of experiences throughout his career, Mr Shantilal quips that there may come a time when he writes a book on his learnings.
His key lessons? “One is leading with humility, and the other is to inspire your people in your team; and then, doing the right thing for yourself, the team and the company.”
Correction: The original report stated that Fircroft reported a turnover of US$1.7billion in the last financial year. This is incorrect. Fircroft reported a turnover of S$1.7billion in the last financial year. We apologise for the error. This article was edited at 4.20pm on March 3, 2014.