Twenty eight years ago, a young and strapping management graduate from Illinois State University set out to carve himself a career in operations research—his study of specialization in his business degree. Instead, serendipity and an uncanny nose for sniffing opportunities catapulted Mukesh Mehta into what would become an outstanding career in information technology.
Mehta is Vice President of Corporate Systems and Global Outsourcing at the New York-based MetLife Inc., one of the largest insurance and financial services company in the nation. Known in the industry for his expertise in starting offshore development centers, Mehta has spearheaded IT initiatives covering a wide spectrum of insurance businesses—from auto and homeowners, to property and casualty, pensions and annuities, group health insurance, and workers’ compensation.

Yet, his foray into IT was by sheer chance. Mehta was a twenty three year-old greenhorn from b-school when he interviewed with Aetna Inc., in Hartford, CT, for what he believed was an operations research job. A string of interviews later, he went back to HR with a predicament. None of the interviewers had asked him anything related to operations research. Instead, he had been interviewed all day for a programming job! The HR person assured him that once he joined Aetna, he could shift to another job within the company.

“Without a green card, I was just happy to get some kind of offer. I took the trainee programmer job and started working with the 12 month work permit you get when you graduate,” he reminiscences. Mehta not only fell in love with his programming job, he was incredibly successful from the start. “Early in my career, I was being promoted every six months. I went from the ranks to management within three years,” he says.

A self-proclaimed cosmopolitan, Mehta—originally from Gujarat—has equal measures of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Illinois, Connecticut, and New York in him. His father’s transferable work at the Indian Railways took Mehta through schooling in Calcutta and Mumbai (then Bombay), after which he graduated in engineering (electronics and telecommunication) from the Regional Engineering College in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. Then in 1976, he set out to obtain an MBA degree in the United States because it was the “thing to do.”

Mehta did have a role model. “I know it sounds a little cliché, but my dad was my mentor,” he confides. The inspiration proved valuable, and Mehta developed a distinct outlook towards work from early on. “Proving yourself early, working hard, having the right opportunities, being at the right place at the right time, taking advantage of opportunities, and having a supportive environment are vital to a successful career,” he says.

His work ethics are clear-cut and he emphasizes on positive attitude and hard work. “Attitude is important. There are people who could do a very good job in terms of their qualifications, but if you’re very qualified and don’t have the right attitude I would rather hire somebody not as qualified but has a tremendous attitude. Working hard and pleasing the customer is important,” he says.

During the course of his 23 years at Aetna,
Mehta spearheaded offshore development centres in India at Bangalore and Pune, in partnership with Infosys Technologies. He joined MetLife’s New York headquarters in April 2001 at a time when the company was in the process of looking for an offshore partner. Given his background, Mehta was the natural choice to lead an offshore program in India. Subsequently, MetLife partnered with Cognizant Technologies in opening an offshore centre in Chennai, and later with Patni Computer Systems in Mumbai and Pune.

He currently leads a multi-year effort to revamp the enterprise’s financial systems end-to-end, and leads a Global Sourcing Program Management Office responsible for establishing and managing the offshore outsourcing effort. Mehta’s responsibilities include partner relationship management, communication issues, and establishing metrics of performance.

“From the offshore perspective you hear a lot of horror stories about things not having gone well. The key to success—and I’ve done this twice before—is making sure that you have all the critical success factors lined up,” he says.

In addition to the technical issues of offshore work, Mehta emphasizes the value of integrating cross-cultural workspaces. “We’ve periodically held cultural training workshops on business across cultures, especially focusing on India,” he says.

Mehta’s management-style has three underlying aspects—hard work, accountability, and trust. “A person in any management position has to get the most out of his or her people. You have to build an environment where people feel they can contribute,” he points out.

Mehta believes it is important to balance delegation and control. “I try to give people as much rope they need to do their jobs. But you have to watch where people can work independently and where they need help,” he observes.

Mehta has seen a lot of change in his twenty five years in the industry. “Back in the seventies, as long as you did a half decent job, you had the job for life. Insurance companies weren’t big into layoffs and we referred to Aetna as Mother Aetna and employees at MetLife referred to it as Mother Met,” he says. But over time—as with every industry—the insurance sector became more competitive and employees had to keep up with the pace of change by becoming increasingly aggressive in their ability to deliver more.

Adaptability, he says, was one of the best lessons he learnt along the way. It proved to be a valuable one, since Mehta has worked the whole gamut in the insurance space, aligning IT strategies with various businesses.

Mehta says team work and honesty are two qualities he respects in colleagues. He also believes it’s important to have fun at work and spend time with one’s family.

“I’ve always had the attitude that it’s important to have fun at work since people spend a lot of time working. And it’s very important to have a good blend between work life and family life. Yes, I am demanding, but I am also fair with people. That’s why I guess they like working for me,” laughs the veteran IT head.