The real change, which I have started to realize, is that the buck stops at me. When you gradually transition, one cannot really make out sudden changes.

We live in a world of contradictions. On one side you have the economic crisis, unemployment, European crisis, uncertainty in the U.S., and lack of growth. On the other side, there are tremendous opportunities. There are many emerging trends and in our case, it could be creating opportunities arising out of emergence of digital consumer, growth in emerging markets, new sustainable technologies, or change in urban demographics. The role of the CEO essentially is to see which of the opportunities to leverage to create growth for your corporation.

When I speak to CEOs of several global companies, I see a dichotomy. On one end is the lack of confidence or clarity. On the other end is the bunch of opportunities that they are thinking to leverage. This is the world in which most of the CEOs today operate.

Across the World, be it in developed or developing economies, the ability of Governments to create social wealth and enhance the quality of life is diminishing. The only entities other than Government, which can create social wellbeing, are large corporations. Going forward, Corporates have a much bigger role to play in the social wellbeing. It is not just about profits and growth. They (corporations) are the custodians of most of the social wealth and there is a responsibility to use it for social wellbeing.

We get impacted by events in the corporate world more than the events in the government world. Given this context, the most critical role of the CEO is to drive holistic performance. It is not just revenue and profit. It has different dimensions and it is about delivering performance to all stake holders - clients, employees, investors and society.