from the boardroom to the from the boardroom to classroom · banking industry. however after...

1 | NexTalent Consulting | 2018

A lmost all of us who have had the goodfortune to receive a sound educationcan remember our teachers and the

effect they had on us – best and worst. Both ofus can recall the stars of our MBA year, as werecoil at the memory of those less suited toacademia. The contrast is striking, and wewanted to explore what it is that draws peopleto academia, if they are not born to it. Teachingat a local business school has traditionally beenperceived as something it is nice to “slip into”on approaching retirement, when it is likelythat there will be a shift in energy available, andthat the accumulated experience of theexecutive will have some real value in theschool’s curriculum. However, here we look at

the stories of five leaders who chose to enter theteaching space long before retirement. We exam-ine what set them on that path, especially withregard to long-term plans and motivations, aswell as how they are managing the balancebetween the corporate and academic worlds. Theresults may surprise and inspire you.

A self-confessed “under-performer” in highschool , Dan had obtained a degree inengineering, through extra hard work and creditson a course that had started out being limited togeology. After some painful, unenjoyable yearsworking in Canada’s oilfields, where money andbeing able to pay off student loans made up forthe discomfort, the career Dan has carved out

From the Boardroom to the Classroom

Howbusinessexecutivesbringtheirwisdomandpassionfromthe“realworld”toenricheducation.ByAntoineTirardandClaireHarbour-Lyell

NexTalent Perspective – December 2018

From the Boardroom to the Classroom


seems blissfully free of over-planning ortrauma, and packed with serendipity. When theoilfield work dried up, he found a role, via thelocal unemployment office in Toronto, workingon clean tech issues for the city. He thenbecame responsible for waste management inthe city of Guelph, and rapidly dug into projectsincluding a recycling program and a sustainableretail store.

HappenstanceWhile in Guelph, and developing the recyclingand waste management program, Dan wasfortunate to do a master’s degree part time,benefitting from all the city data on wastemanagement for his thesis. His increasing focusand expertise allowed him to apply successfullyfor a job leading the island’s waste managementprogram in Bermuda. He gave up the oceanlifestyle two and a half years later for thebeginning of a twenty year career at the WorldBank, where Dan became lead advisor onsustainable cities, traveling the world andsolving many real and engaging problems.However, while Dan loved his work, the traveltook its toll, and helped end his first marriage.On meeting his current wife, a move ensued toToronto, where she had strong ties. Oneconnection was the Dean of the University ofOntario Institute of Technology, who wasattracted by Dan’s varied background, as well asthe adaptability he had built up over all thedifferent industry sectors, countries and cul-tures, and he asked him to consider a post inthe Energy Systems and Nuclear Sciencefaculty, where his experience and researchwould be of great value.Dan is blissfully happy branching out toenergy systems, convinced that teaching abouthis passion is “the best gig in the world”. Heobtained his PhD from the University ofToronto two years after moving to UOIT. Heoccasionally receives offers to return to inter-national development work, but cannot imagineever wishing to accept. His description of life isthat of “living in a beautiful smorgasbord”! It isclear that Dan has found a new calling, despitehis early reticence at the public speaking thatwas necessary in his city government jobs. “I

love teaching the final year students,particularly. It is a real privilege: they are likebirds on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump intotheir career, and I get to whisper in their earsbefore they jump.”What were the surprises about moving intoteaching? Dan highlights what he calls“widespread and unsanctioned incivility inmeetings”, the result, he believes, of too manybrilliant minds enjoying intellectual sparring onsubjects that “in the business world would noteven make it to the agenda”. Similarly, heunderstands that with a PhD late in life, he willnever be perceived as the “A-player” type ofprofessor, nor accepted totally by the group ofcareer academics. But he has found a way toplay their game, through research and publi-cation, mentioning that the first paper hepublished was “on the cover of NatureMagazine”.As for advice to aspiring converts toacademics, Dan uses the Nike slogan we allknow, and alludes to the freedom of choice,recognizing that he was lucky, compared tothose who find golden handcuffs too difficult toprise open, such as some of those at theconsulting firms with whom he used tocollaborate. His remuneration is distributeddifferently now, but his freedom has increased,with flexible time and focus, and a sense that heis doing the best job in the world for him. Herecommends just starting with one course, as ataster, and then developing further. He alsosees opportunities to be part of a sea-change inthe world of academia, which is about to be


Name

Dan Hoornweg

Country

Canada

Teaching career

Professor and Research Chair, University of Ontario Institute of Technology)

Business career

International development, waste management, World Bank, Jacobs, Schlumberger


“Uberized”, in his opinion, and likely to haveincreasing needs for people who can straddlethe different parts of society, bringing realworld experience to the table. Fresh ideas are“desperately needed”.Does Dan miss the World Bank? He missesthe unusually passionate people, the dinners incountries all over the world, where groups ofthem would convene, using their sharp andsocially committed minds, trying, and oftensucceeding, to solve significant problems. Buthe does not miss the travel and knows he is inthe right place now, without any question.

A strategic move towards academia by our nextsubject sits as a stark contrast to Dan’s story ofeffortless serendipity. Although nothing couldhave predicted that Sandi become a professor,apart, maybe, from the fact that during hisschool years, his quiet, unimposing, but smartpersonality attracted those who were strugglingacademically, and he enjoyed helping them one-to-one. But never would he have imaginedhimself standing up in front of hundreds,delivering wisdom and insight.

Good CombinationHis early corporate years were spent atMcKinsey, and, post MBA, he joined an Iberianretail chain, happy to enter the corporate world,rather than being merely an advisor. His familyhad been in business for generations, so thiswas a familiar area for him. He settled into highperformance until the company was sold to thelarger French group Auchan. The mergerbrought changes of structure which made it nolonger pleasant for him to work there, and,despite warnings from friends not to “jump”, heleft without a safety net.While he was figuring out what to do next, hisfather asked him to help out in a particularlythorny legal case, against former businesspartners. And thus he joined the familybusiness, as right-hand man to the CEO of adiversified company with interests in Africa aswell as the Iberian peninsula, and a massivebattle ongoing. Meanwhile, Sandi invested withhis brother in a separate entity – a car servicemaster franchise, which they developed


Name

Alexandre “Sandi” Dias da Cunha

Country

Portugal

Teaching career

Assistant Professor (Adjunct), Director of the Family Business Initiative, Nova School of Business and Economics

Business career

Consultant, owner-manager, board member, McKinsey, family businesses

successfully for almost ten years, until 2011,when at the height of the financial crisis inPortugal the banks forced them to sell theirhighly leveraged business.Three months of recovery from the trauma,mixed with brainstorming with his wife, trustedadvisors and mentors, as well as a profoundaudit of his interests led to him realizing thathis wish was to develop his passion for familybusiness into an expertise on which he couldconsult and advise; and it was very clear to himthat to gain legitimacy in this area, whatever hispedigree in business terms, he would need toget close to academia. So, teaching became hismeans to an end.

Intensive networking with friends andconnections in the business school world ofLisbon commenced, and the stars aligned fasterthan he had imagined. Via some fellow MBAalumni, Sandi had met the Vice Dean of theNOVA Business School, who called him,relating his problem that a teacher of GlobalSupply Chain Management had suddenly left,and that he had thought Sandi might be able totake over, given his experience in retail andoperations. He asked, “would you like to dothis? And have you ever taught?” To whichSandi answered, “I am not scared of doing it” –so he started three days later.He survived the craziness, but soon recom-mended to the Dean that he recruit a truesupply chain scholar, at the same timepreaching for a family business initiative in the


school, and was thrilled to receive a warmresponse. This time he had a whole threemonths to prepare, recognizing that “luck hadfound me trying”. After six years of teaching,Sandi absolutely thrives as a family businessexpert. His classes are “simple sincere, and fullof passion”, obtaining consistently high ratings,and adding to his sense that the school is one ofhis “homes”.While his role at NOVA is substantial, Sandijuggles this with a continuing activity in thefamily business, as well as a specializedconsulting role at the Cambridge Family Enter-prise Group, that came along only once he wasan established academic. He is clear that he will“never be one of the top, research-driven,publishing professors”, in what he describes asa “two-level system” in the school. However, hehas definitely become “one of the the familybusiness go-to people in Portugal”, as hedescribes it.Sandi expects to continue the three activitiesfor as long as he works and sees no reason toshift this balance, nor to seek anything else,though he might tackle a PhD “for fun” at somepoint. To those considering a move toprofessorship, he recommends “Find somethingyou are passionate about and the rest will workitself out!”. Also, Sandi believes that taking thetime to explore and reflect iteratively is a luxurymost should grab, if at all possible. Indeed, hisexperimentation while doing the supply chainteaching was invaluable for taking him out ofhis comfort zone, and trying out the world ofacademia.What keeps him motivated? “The fact thatthese kids, while so much more au fait witheconomics and statistics than I was at that age,know so little about companies and real-lifework. They don’t understand that companiesbelong to people and have little clue about howto manage stakeholders. So, I am helping themtowards corporate life, using real-life, concreteexamples, gleaned from my own career inside,as well as my consulting career now. It is aperfect combination”.

As a strong contrast, Sandi’s colleague, Cons-tança, did not plan to teach professionally at all,

even though, from the very first moment thatshe can remember she was someone who lovedlearning and was extremely curious abouteverything from agriculture through buildingfurniture, to tackling traffic jams. She describesthis as the “program she was born with”.

If I Could Teach the WorldHaving grown up in a middle-class Portuguesefamily with a teacher mother and a naval officerfather, she became deeply interested early inpolitics, namely in the Marxist philosophy, instriking contrast to her family background.Naturally enough she studied economics andaspired to creating a fairer system. Constançawas always studying, even on the beach, andchoosing to help support and teach her fellowstudents, not so much to earn money or kudos,but so she could learn more and create a win-win situation. On graduating from university,she says “I sort of sold myself to the system. Iwent to work at McKinsey where I could workwith powerful CEOs and change the world whileearning lots of money. I kidded myself this wasjust fine and forgot my dream.“ Even beforethen, she had been teaching in the faculty forsome years and had been invited to develop herideas into a PhD, but pushed this aside in herexcitement to join a top firm.Many years of work in consulting ensued, inwhich she fought the obvious facts of hermakeup. She remembered an interview she hadhad a few years ago for BCG where the partnerhad had the courage to tell her that she would


Name

Constança Monteiro Casquinhoa

Country

Portugal

Teaching career

Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Mind-fulness in Leadership, Nova School of Business and Economics

Business career

Consultant, banker, EBRD, McKinsey, AT Kearney


not be happy in this job and he would not offerit to her. Finally and ironically, having aimed tomake her parents proud of her, she realized thatshe could be more proud of herself. Whilemoving to London, Constança moved fromconsulting into the EBRD, all excited that onceagain she would have an opportunity to changethe world – only to discover her colleagueslooking askance at her when she told them ofher lofty social ambitions.On finding herself pregnant she decided toreturn to her roots and shifted her careeraspirations: she “just wanted” to be a mother.On giving birth she bought her own place inLisbon and vowed to stay, accepting work in thebanking industry. However after severalmonths of running between nursery school,PowerPoint presentations and “fake P&Lstatements” she quit, deciding that the idea ofcareer had lost all meaning to her and decidedto focus on raising her young daughter, pullingon her substantial savings to finance them.As she moved further away from her originalview of career and used both yoga andmeditation to focus on the present, Constançadecided to learn how to be of service “now“.While the risk is higher, this makes her muchhappier: “I cannot control what I’ll be doing inthree months.“ But the basic goal of service nowkept her going and she allowed herself to beguided. Opening up in this way to serendipitybrought her a part-time job helping a paraplegicto develop learning programs together, andlearning about the power of positive thinking.Meanwhile her savings from her previouslucrative careers begin to dwindle and she felt aneed to do something more, especially as shewas confronted with expensive school fees forher daughter. Once again destiny stepped inand a close friend at NOVA said, “We needsomeone like you at the University – come.” Shefirst joined to lead a student consulting cell, but,little by little many other roles appeared, as if bymagic. Suddenly, although she had not plannedto teach, she was invited to teach the sameStrategy Consulting program Sandi had beenteaching. And later she taught it alone.Her initial feedback from the students wasreally negative and she spent days wonderingwhy they had “hated everything”. She was

sorely tempted to give up but others helped herand she tackled it again and several times since,testing different versions with increasingconfidence and better learning. Now she isconfident that they get from her “what booksdon’t teach them“, adding “I teach them to be ofservice, and that makes me and them happy.”Constança feels enthusiastic about thisgeneration of students and youth, and feelsthat, good or bad, she wants to serve them.While we know that she will not plan orstrategize, we do see that she has embraced thisopportunity and will continue to pursue herservice objective as long as she can.

Some 5,000 miles away from Portugal in India,Anand Pillai, a self-confessed “hobby teacher”by the age of eleven, definitely showed all thesigns of ending up in academia early on, eventhough by now, he looks for balance in his work.

Everybody's Got to Learn SometimeDuring his college years, Anand was thepresident of the India Youth Brigade, where heworked with teachers and leaders to serve theunderprivileged through education, whilestudying for a BSc in Physics and Maths. Hethen went on to gain a computer sciencecertification, in the early eighties, becoming oneof the early entrants into the nascent Indian ITboom. Several years began of highly prestigiousnational and international companies’ trainingschemes and rapid progress, mixing IT withstrategy, marketing and account management,thus he became early on an accomplished “all


Name

Anand Pillai

Country

India

Teaching career

Adjunct Professor, Strategy and Leadership, Co-chair HR & OB,IMT Ghaziabad

Business career

CHRO, Chief Learning Officer, Sales & Marketing, Reliance, HCL Technologies, Nortel



1. Focusing on the person and their learning first rather than on business and results

2. Valuing years of previous business experience and building credibility in the marketplace

3. Helping students understand and move towards corporate life, using real-life examples

4. Combining teaching with other advisory or consulting activities feeling that the two worlds feed each other

5. The freedom that allows sabbaticals, flexible time and focus,

6. The energy and enthusiasm of the students that keep you moving forward

7. A sense that you are doing the best job in the world for you

7 sources of gratification for executives turned professors

-rounder”.The scale and impact of his roles grew, still incompanies recognized for IT excellence,whether Tata or the Modi Group or HughesCommunications, with national and regionalleadership status soon awarded to him. In1998, having built extensive ties between hisIndian networking company and academia,Anand took advantage of its acquisition byNortel to move on, and joined HCLTechnologies, a jewel in India’s IT crown.Initially spending time as VP of Sales andMarketing for a large division, Anand thenmoved on to a thirteen-year stint of heading theTalent Transformation initiative for the wholegroup. This was where the academic linkskicked right back in, and the build-up ofexperience of innovation in leadershipdevelopment truly started. It was on moving tothe U.S., to take on a global leadership position,that Anand’s move towards teaching began togather momentum.His main focus at that time was to “breedintrapreneurs”, using Blue Ocean Strategy, andmarshaling the company around the philosophyof “Employees First, Customers Second”. Thisapproach was crucial in gaining Anand areputation as a guest lecturer globally inbusiness schools, from Harvard to MIT Sloan,LBS to most of the Indian IIM’s. Not only washe successful on the business school circuit, butalso he achieved accolades with HCL frequentlywinning prestigious business awards for itslearning and leadership functions.After over 13 years of service to HCL, Anandwas tempted away to Reliance IndustriesLimited, where his senior role as head of HRand Learning sharpened his taste and abilities

in this area, and he created more innovationaround learning and organizational develop-ment, once again working with external entities,such as McKinsey, to derive a reputation as anabsolute thought leader in Talent.By this stage, Anand was starting to observe anuncomfortable gap between industry andacademic institutions. He realized that hewanted to “influence people and leave a legacyof transformed lives”, giving back to the nextgeneration as well as simply generating profitsfor his employers. So, when invited, in 2015, toaddress an executive program at the top IndianBusiness School, IMT Ghaziabad, andsubsequently invited to join the faculty, he wasready to jump. For the past couple of years, hehas been leading Strategy and Leadership, aswell as Human Resources and OrganizationalBehavior faculties.Anand delights in his new focus “on the

person, whereas the focus of businesses is onthe business impact by leveraging both peopleand processes”. His assimilation has been easedby the fact that he had links with schools fordecades before entering academia full time, andby his keen inclination all along towardrelevance in research. The success he hasgained as a teacher no doubt derives from hisstorytelling capacities, drawing on 36 years ofcorporate experience, thus leading to com-pelling case studies on which to work withstudents. It is as if the two worlds have collided,allowing validation of previous experience in away he finds most satisfying.The energy and enthusiasm of the studentskeeps him moving forward, while he finds“paperwork” as frustrating as one mightimagine. What does he miss? “The interaction


with other functional departments” is thehardest thing to have left behind, and Anandstates clearly that if he could go back, not full-time but part-time, to the corporate world, hewould. He is fulfilled and grateful for his role atIMT, and for all the teaching engagements heheld before, but clearly nostalgic for the “otherside” too. He does have his own consulting firmalso, and this may allow him the interactivity heis missing, so only time will tell if his “lifelonglearning discipline” takes him back to furthercorporate experiences or not. It seems evidentthat his ability to create change in organiza-tions is one that facilitates self-transformationalso, so, we will see.

Charles has never moved far from academia,despite a resoundingly successful corporatecareer in HR, Learning and Development.Indeed, he says that most of his friends andthose who know him would describe him as anacademic first and foremost.

Back to School AgainHe started out by studying business at Canada’srenowned McGill University. Then, beingyounger than his school peers by two years,moved on to Oxford, where he took a Master’sin Common-wealth History, and his interest inAfrica and Asia began. Charles took on his firstprofessional role with the UN where he oversawa variety of development projects in Rwanda.His main reason for the choice was that it wasdifficult and would stretch him in ways not yetexperienced. The hunger for learning wasplaying out already.On completing his mission in Africa, Charleswent to study an MBA at Stanford, where he,once again, sought the most different andchallenging environment for him. Whatfollowed was a brief exchange in Paris that ledto a longer stay than planned: he joined aconsulting firm that was heavily populated withHEC professors, and thrived in this context thatlaunched his teaching and corporate advisorycareer.Then ensued almost eight years at L’Oréal,where Charles’s work in Learning and Develop-ment was part of a very high profile anddynamic professionalization of the HR function,

and much of his energies went into developingprograms with INSEAD, NYU and so on. Hewas most involved in content development forinnovative programs, both in the Paris headoffice, and in Asia, where he created links withlocal business school CEIBS of Shanghai. Here,his proudest achievement was a personaldevelopment program for high potentials inAsia, taking them from individual contributorsto leaders. He became highly involved with boththe content and the pedagogical approach, eventhough he was not, strictly speaking, teaching.When the company asked him to return to ahead office role, Charles took this as a sign toleave, and he co-created his own leadershipdevelopment and recruitment firm, as well ascreating and delivering a Luxury and RetailManagement course at CEIBS, in addition toteaching in other business schools in Europe,including Lyon and Zurich. By this stage, he hadworked closely with business school academicsfor twenty or so years and so the shift camequite naturally to him.The unexpected struck in 2014. With amassive slump in the luxury sector in China,both recruitment and teaching dropped offconsiderably, leaving Charles and his family nochoice but to look quickly elsewhere. He wasinvited to join the Valiram Group in Malaysia,as CHRO, where he led an intensive recruit-ment drive to support the growth the group wasexperiencing across Asia Pacific. However,despite success in his role, the leadershipenvironment became unpleasant with signi-ficant tensions among the owners around cash


Name

Charles de Brabant

Country

Canada

Teaching career

Executive Director, BensadounSchool of Retail Management, McGill University

Business career

CHRO, Learning & Development, Consulting, Valiram Group, L’Oréal, United Nations



1. Having to take a pay cut – sometimes substantial

2. Self-directing your assimilation into teaching, moving beyond possible negative feedback from your first classes

3. The inevitable paperwork and bureaucracy of the academic environment

4. Dealing with brilliant colleagues who have a tendency for incivility and intellectual spar-ring

5. Not being totally accepted by the group of career academics

6. Realizing that you will likely never be perceived as an “A-player” professor

7. Being nostalgic for the “other side”, missing the interaction with other corporate functions and colleagues

7 sources of frustration for executives turned professors

flow and how to manage the growth and Charleswas deeply affected by this. He became ill withcancer and had to stop work to tackle anaggressive treatment.Once he was done with the chemo, Charleswent back to Canada where fate took over andeverything fell into place, even if this did nothappen in quite a straight line. Just as he wasabout to reluctantly accept an offer fromanother school, a miracle happened, and he wasappointed as the executive director of a newschool at McGill University, the BensadounSchool of Retail Management, created as theresult of a huge endowment.While the current situation is a dream forCharles, in many senses – he works on an“incredible project” 100% supported by thedean of the Faculty of Management –, his inputfor now is limited to the leadership, and notteaching. However, his ultimate goal is toteach, and this has been promised. Meantime,he is involved in curriculum design, going backto his corporate-derived strengths, allied withhis intellectual mind, and influencing hisacademic counterpart more than he might havehoped.Is this his final goal achieved, then? It wouldseem so. He told us that “given the fact that Ihave taken a 70% pay cut, I would be crazy to doit if I did not love it”. He considers himself “veryvery lucky” to be in the unique position of abusiness school that is moving fast, which ismost unusual for academia. Alongside theabundance attitude of “yes, let’s do it”, giveshim scope to develop and grow, while enjoyinghimself. This is the wonderful combination thatallows Charles the stimulation of creatingsomething new while enjoying a far betterlifestyle and an ideal work eco-system. His

friends were right, then: he is an academic firstand foremost, but his skills to drive academia tonew places are what distinguish him.

As we reflect on their stories, our five subjectshave similar destinations, but highly distinctpaths taken on the way. We believe that thismay well be an indicator of the extent of thetrend toward academia. There is indeed anincreasing phenomenon in business schoolsand universities to engage teaching staff whohave a background in “real life” business, andeven arguments, such as that put forward in arecent Times Higher Education article,suggesting that all academics should be sent outinto the real business world every three to fiveyears. While this is, as yet, far from a reality,there is an opportunity for those who have hada substantial corporate experience in onespecialized field or another to bring that tobusiness schools, and win a place at the front ofbusiness school amphitheaters, sharing andchallenging students around their favoritebusiness topics.Remembering Dan’s comment that educationand academia need a drastic renovation, we canonly hope that this younger, more worldly andexperienced generation is going to achieve thatUberization in ways that suit the rapidlychanging world and business landscape.Meantime, we can learn from their experience,so as to make such a transition for ourselves inthe best possible way.

AntoineTirardisatalentmanagementadvisorandthefounderofNexTalent.HeistheformerheadoftalentmanagementofNovartisandLVMH.ClaireHarbour-Lyellisaglobaltalentexpert,focusedoncoachingandconsultingacrossborders,andstirringupdisruption!

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