Get into the mind of the man who's always on the move — Analjit Singh talks about his work and the desire for maximum impact

The year was 1999 and had you been in England at the time, you might just have come upon a Sikh gentleman quietly going about his business. At first glance, you might have taken him for a man of leisure as you watched him in the garden of his home in Surrey, saw him get his son settled into college at Harrow or walk with friends along the Thames in London. You might even be forgiven for thinking that this well-dressed gentleman-at-large had achieved his life’s ambitions, hungs up his boots and taken time out to smell the flowers. And you could almost have been right. Almost — because 45 year old Analjit Singh was far from being done with grappling with life and the opportunities it had to offer. While he had spent most of the year in contemplation, it was simply the calm before the sizeable storm of activity that would follow. But the story gets ahead of itself. We must retrace our steps to the year 1983, when a young man, newly returned from his studies abroad, took his first steps as an entrepreneur. Singh was no stranger to big business as he was the youngest of the three sons of Bhai Mohan Singh, patriarch of the leading family in Indian pharmaceuticals. When it came time for the division of assets, Analjit Singh found most of the ‘family silver’ going the way of his brothers. This was a defining moment for the young man who found himself on the fringes of the family business. As he puts it, “At that time, the sole mission was to establish a company, attain some financial independence from the family and get going in life.” And get going is exactly what he did; building, selling and partnering in ventures at a dizzying speed, prompting some observers to dub him a serial entrepreneur. Max India Ltd, incorporated in 1984, set up the first three US FDA approved plants and went into bulk pharmaceuticals. Singh concedes that this was an “opportunistic” phase as he took his chances where he could — his businesses ranged from electronic components, to plastics packaging and eventually to telecom and VSAT. In an era where most organisations were celebrating the dawn of liberalisation by consolidating their businesses, Max seemed to be heading in the other direction by being what Singh calls an “almost peculiarly diversified company”. In 1998, he cashed in a 41 per cent stake in one of his most successful joint ventures with Hutchison Whampoa for mobile telephony. He ended up with `561 crore in the bank and the dilemma of figuring out quite what to do with it. Then came the defining moment of epiphany in 1999. As Analjit Singh says, “I had a switch of sorts and thought that life had got to be about more than setting up businesses, running businesses and becoming profitable. That inner passion was to find things to do that had a cause and were about permanence. Because at the end of the day, there was no lasting impact of the businesses that I was in to the Life of a person. But I did nothing and kindof knocked around for that year, because I thought these things — trying to contribute to society, making some sort of a dent in other people’s lives – were very high-falutin’ aspirations and could not be translated into something tangible and certainly not a business!”

FROM THE FRINGES TO THE FORE

Knowing his own mind, but not quite seeing the way to achieving his goals, Singh did what he does best — he reached out to experts. Cloistering himself with consultants and reaching out to friends and associates, he hammered out the new face of the Max India Group of companies. In 2000, they exited nine of the 10 businesses they had built from scratch in order to free up capital and management time. They also articulated a ‘Vision 2000’, which was to operate in the four areas of insurance, health care, education and hospitality, with the first two getting off the ground almost in tandem. Finally, it was time for Analjit Singh to put his ideas to the test and prove his doubters wrong. “The reputation I had ended up with after the first few years was that Analjit can’t sit still (which is true), if he sees another opportunity, he’ll go after it and then what will happen to these long gestation, capital intensive businesses that need sustained focus? I absolutely resisted and to this day, I have not branched out into any unrelated area.” An old hand at joint ventures, Singh went looking for partners in insurance and found them in New York Life, an American company that brought with it more than 165 years of experience in the sector. With capital and partners in place, all that was left was finding a ‘world class CEO’. The search ended with an old school friend and trusted adviser, Anuroop ‘Tony’ Singh. As Analjit Singh says “At every such turning point in my life, I have felt an invisible hand that comes to put things in place that then become building blocks for a business. I regard my CEO coming in at that time as one such move.” Now the Vice Chairman of the company, Tony Singh played an executive role for five years before he stepped off into governance. Starting at a time when insurance was largely the preserve of the government and smaller than most of its competition at the time, 10 years have seen Max New York Life (MNYL) emerge as the third largest life insurance company in the country. Last year, when most Indian insurers were licking the wounds suffered due to regulations imposed by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, MNYL was one of only two companies that grew their business. Thumping the table to emphasise each point, Analjit Singh puts their success down to pure strategy, tenacity and good governance. Asking a top consultant from McKinsey to “get his shaving kit and live with us for three months”, the senior management operated out of a ‘war room’ in the Gurgaon office and essentially restructured the whole business. In the process they shut down 250 offices, cut expense lines by `500 crore, moved their target segment and went back to the basics of selling saving and protection products. As Tony Singh puts it, “When we started in insurance, we took a unique approach and went for long-term products, whole life insurance policies, etc. We were the only company that took this purist attitude to life insurance and wanted to build a life insurance company on a life insurance balance sheet, not a mutual fund business on a life insurance balance sheet, which is what a lot of people did. The regulators came down very hard on that but for us, it was the path we had wanted to take. It was tough for us, but very good news directionally and strategically and we capitalised on that.” The healthcare business was a very different animal that posed challenges of its own. It took some convincing to get the right physicians and clinicians on board. Singh says that people were initially hesitant to jump onto his bandwagon. “Who are you, Max? You don’t even know how a hospital is run; you don’t even have a hospital. Why should I chuck 20 years of my practice and come work for you?”‚ was an attitude that Singh says he and his team worked hard to overcome. But these are distant memories now as Max Healthcare has a network of 11 hospitals and more coming up. The builder of this empire is a study in contrasts. He has no qualms about taking credit where it’s his due; but ask him who his mentors and icons are, and he is quick to point to his colleagues — Dr S.S. Baijal, Ram Charan and Tony Singh. If not an entrepreneur, he would have wanted to be a gymnast because of “their pursuit of perfection” or an army man, because of their impeccable turnout. A dapper dresser himself, he looks embarrassed at the notion of having a favourite designer — “Gosh! No such thing”. He puts his achievements down to a basic attitude of service and humility, “though of course when you say you have humility, you have lost it right there and then!” Disarmingly straightforward, he is also a perfectionist. That is apparent the minute you walk into his office-cum-residence on Aurangzeb Road in Delhi. The expansive gardens and various rooms are spotless. While there is an army of caretakers, Singh is passionate about “the colour green” and knows “the height of every hedge in the house”. You could say that of all the properties of the man who admits, “homes and houses are my most extravagant buys”, as he aligns a napkin more precisely on a tray.

We Can’t Sit Still

The `7,250 crore Max India Group has crossed more than a decade in existence and change is in the air once again. Last year, Max took its first steps into the world of Health Insurance, tying up with Bupa Finance PLC of the UK, a move that ties in nicely with the rest of their package. In another recent shift, Max Healthcare sold 26 per cent stakes to South African hospital operator Life Healthcare Group for debt repayment and a carefully planned expansion. One fallout of these changes was the departure of Dr Pervez Ahmed as CEO, a move that Singh explains quite candidly. “Max Healthcare has changed. In the last few months we have gone from 900 to practically 17,00 beds. In this complex organisation, I was saying to Pervez that he must take himself up more into governance like I have. I made Pervez alternative offers and discussed it extensively. He still wished to stay in the operating role and we could not agree. Again, it’s not about just carrying on as we have been. In a business, you have to get proactive and fix or change things.” Singh has been ‘getting proactive’ in the leadership structure of the company as well. Working with key advisors, he is in the process of putting in governance models that will ensure that the companies remain professionally run. Closely involved with the process, Tony Singh says, “We are institutionalising processes so they are not dependent on individuals. For example, they are board managed companies, not Analjit managed companies any more. We can see the success of these processes in all the places where they are well tenured.” Analjit Singh’s first step towards the new governance model: firing himself as the Managing Director. Rahul Khosla, who stepped into the role earlier this year, says “He is clearly an evolved and mature individual who understands himself and the context of what he is doing. And he does this not by being prescriptive of how things should turn out, but collaborative in how we take the journey together. Even though Analjit is the significant owner of the enterprise, he is not someone who would compromise the quality of management, professionalism and governance in the company.” Question Analjit Singh about the secret to his success and he says “My God-given gift is not finding the solution. It is not necessarily to always execute and deliver it. But my God-given gift is to read a situation, see the problem and put a system in place which I can administer well to get the right person to do the job.” That explains the management structure in his companies, but where do his three children fit into that model? Though two of his children are involved in the private businesses — son Veer in hospitality and daughter Tara in senior living — they do not have operational roles in the publicly listed companies. While his children are being guided by stalwarts like Ram Charan and other seniors, Singh is clear that this is the time for them to earn their stripes and develop their capabilities. Having experienced first-hand that succession can divide families, he has put plans in place to forestall that by setting up a Trust to administer the family assets. “On 12th November last year, I guess I was personally the owner of 98 per cent of our net worth, and today I own nothing. It’s all in that Trust so nobody can question ownership because it has been transferred in my lifetime. And the trustees’ duties in all scenarios have been laid out. So if the children agree, very well. If they don’t agree, they have a few months to sort it out, after which the trustees are directed to liquidate something and share it between them. So they can’t hijack Max India through indecisiveness between the three of them. They can be given their shares, told to do what they wish and Max India continues unaffected.” Clear-headed when it comes to business, Analjit Singh also takes “his role as mentor-father” very seriously, according to his daughter, Tara. It’s important to him that his children work in collaboration with him wherever possible so they can interact more frequently, something that Tara appreciates. “It wasn’t always the situation where he would pick up the phone and chat to us. We don’t really have that relationship. But he always made sure that he knew what was going on. He does have a hectic schedule, but the minute we needed him and called him he was always available (short of when he was in the air on a plane).”

Of Lists and Legacies

“I would be lying through my teeth if I said they didn’t mean anything to me — of course they do. But am I doing what I do to get on that list or be a part of that legacy? No. My motivation is to bring change and add value — to my company, colleagues and family.” Analjit Singh made it to the Forbes list of 100 Richest Indians. And even though he was not in the top half of the list, he is reportedly the highest tax payer in the country. Senator Hillary Clinton, on behalf of The Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA), awarded him for his ‘outstanding achievement’ in presenting the international community with an understanding of a modern and vibrant India. This was followed by an invitation to be a Member of the Prime Minister’s Joint Indo-US CEOs Forum. Singh has become something of a business ambassador for the country, a role he doesn’t take lightly. “With a turban on my head and a beard on my face, there is absolutely no doubt where I come from. My family and I are on our best behaviour when we are outside India because I believe we carry the flag for the country. It is the same when it comes to my business. Because of our operating principles and image, we sometimes give a little firangi picture of ourselves. We are what I call an Indian international company, not a multinational. I get very hassled when people say that Max has got built through its foreign partners as I don’t want anyone to compromise the view that Indians can do it.” One would think this would be more than enough work for one man, but education is a topic that is in keeping with his notion of leaving a lasting impact. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Governors of his alma mater, the Doon School, and brings his trademark involvement to the job. As he laughs it off himself, critics tend to see him as ‘too active’, while supporters call him ‘the most active chairperson’. When it comes to ISB Mohali, he and the group have reportedly committed `50 crore to setting it up and he visits the site “religiously every 16 days to ensure that it is ready to open by the 12th of April, 2012”. Some time in the course of the conversation, he excitedly opens his i-Pad to show the pointers he has ready for the new Director of IIT Roorkee. From the vision and function of the planned IIT Roorkee at Greater Noida to ideas on how to attract faculty, it is all in the list. When plans were afoot to make the new campuses into copies of their namesake, Singh came up with his own ideas. “IIT Roorkee has a 10 acre campus in Greater Noida. So we are going to convert that into one centre of excellence — most likely on urban development. We’ve got 45 acres in Saharanpur. I am going to introduce two specialities in that school. We are going to try and transform a little bit how IIT works. The point still is that don’t sit still in life and keep pushing the envelop.” It is the day before Diwali and as the time with Analjit Singh draws to a close, you can see his mind has moved on to the next meeting. Working off his trusted i-Pad and a simple phone — “my assistant is my blackberry” — he is already engrossed in the details of the latest project. It is obviously a pace that suits him for as he puts it, “If you think of healthcare as a business, it’s a bad life. If you think of it as a good life, it’s a great business.”