Naresh Goyal brought in expats to build Jet Airways into a world-class airline, but ended up alienating his Indian staff. Now where will he go?
On September 13, 2009, a few hours after the six-day-long agitation was called off by the pilots at Jet Airways, Naresh Goyal held out an olive branch. In an attempt to bury the hatchet and tell each other “let bygones be bygones,” Goyal, chairman of India’s largest airline, invited 200-odd pilots to join him for high tea at a five-star hotel near Mumbai International airport. But there’s a thing or two about relationships. They’re awfully fragile. And when fractured once, the demons are incredibly difficult to exorcise.
Not that Goyal cared. As far as he was concerned, his ever growing cadre of expats was a badge of honour to be worn proudly. No other Indian company had bet on a diverse a talent pool as he had. He spoke proudly of how his vast network was employed to hunt for the best people, wherever they were. In some sense, it had become a bit of an obsession. So while Goyal, with his pronounced Punjabi accent, exuded a rustic charm, his expat managers became his sophisticated, public face in global forums or to raise Rs. 1,899 crore for a hugely successful IPO. “CEOs are handsome. Entrepreneurs are ugly,” he once said and roared with laughter.
(This story appears in the 09 October, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)