October - 2003 issue > Leadership

By Karthik Sundaram

“So when Santa Singh was required to fill in a response for ‘sex’...” chortles Ajit Singh, his penchant for the much-famed Sardarji jokes setting off guffaws in a group of his friends at a social gathering. President of the Oncology Care Systems Group at the Concord, CA division of Siemens Medical, Singh is known to drive his team and department to success within the global giant. His earlier stints were at the Siemens e-business and medical solutions services; unqualified successes that have won him the management’s respect.

On His Beginnings
It is a very typical Indian student’s start-off. Schooling at different cities in northern India, then engineering at Benares Hindu University and then the one-way flight to study in the U.S. I went to Syracuse for a master’s in electrical engineering and went on to do another master and a Ph.D. in computer science at Columbia. While at Columbia I was offered a job at Philips in Briarcliff, NY. I was working in robotics at that time, and call it serendipity, I met with some people from Siemens who invited me to join them. From industrial imaging I stumbled on to the medical imaging business, while continuing as a faculty at Columbia and then at Princeton. In 1996, I was asked to lead the consulting and information technology solutions business. With less than $100,000 in startup cash, we boot strapped this business and in 2000, the division was over $300 million in turnover. In 2000 we started our e-business division and it was another startup experience. I was then asked to lead the oncology products division. The common denominator in these responsibilities was that I was able to reinvent myself completely every two-three years.

On His Leadership Experience
In the e-business and medical consulting services business, it was a startup environment, while at the oncology business the responsibilities are to turn around and grow this division. The common factor in both these environments is that you need a deep-seated entrepreneurial ability to function well. In both cases I had to built the team from scratch.

What I have learnt from these experiences is that leadership works well when you view it as contextual. When a situation demands a certain set of skills and abilities, it is futile for one person to attempt meeting those demands. Similar to how a relay team coordinates, if the baton is passed on to the right person to handle that contextual demand, the situation is well handled and the leadership is intact and true. Finally, success is at times seen as an end in itself. It is not so. Success should be a catalyst to more success.

If you have more query about magazine please send mail to

May 12	April 12	March 12	Feb 12