How old is young?

The key to success has always been availability of information. He who knows has a head start over the ignorant. It is interesting to see the changes internet has brought about in the way business is done. But some of these changes are frightening to say the least.  The corporate sector is in a dilemma as they are unable to conclude how old is old. The focus is on the age of the CEO. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg the fonder CEO of Face book and whole of 27 years old, seems to have redefined the characteristics of the Company helmsman. 

Here is an anecdote to illustrate my point. 

While I was in NDA in 1988, we played a lot of golf amongst the four clubs in Pune (Pune, RSI, CME and NDA). Among the many tournaments held annually, a regular annual event was one between Western India Golf Addicts Association and the four Pune clubs. The four ball was two youngsters and two addicts. In one of the tournaments I was paired with the younger of the two addicts. The older of the two addicts spoke very little and hit each of his shots to a max distance of 60 meters. He hit dead straight and completed each hole in about 8 -10 strokes. The match was always between the youngsters of the opposing pairings. I struck up a conversation with my partner who was the younger of the two oldies. He told me that the old man playing with us was about 90 years of age but still worked as Chairman and MD of New India Assurance Company. In the course of the conversation I told him about my job with computers in NDA. That is when he said who he was. He was Fakir Chand Kohli (often referred to as the ‘father of the Indian software industry’) who was then pioneering TCS, the largest Indian Software Company then and now. He would have been about 65 years old then and was the Director General of TCS – that was the designation of the MD of TCS then which was changed to the normal range of designations before FCK stepped down as chairman TCS in 2000. 

Now we hear that CEOs in the Tata Group companies are getting younger. This is something unimaginable a decade or so ago. We now have CEOs between the ages of 35 and 45. India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% hovers below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan. With the average age of the top management reducing, there will be earlier burnt outs and widespread despondency.

With Uncle Google and his friends around we may have to revisit the adage that ‘one grows wiser with age’.  Another point is that we may have to build more golf courses.