An hour drive with Mr. Subhanu Saxen, CEO, Novartis

I received a call at midnight from Dilpreet. "Will you go to receive Mr. Saxena" at the gate at 4.00?" After meeting many first generation entrepreneurs this was a time to meet a CEO of truly global MNC.

What will I do till 4 in the night. A better idea would be to go to pick him up at airport i thought and also since Jinal (wife) and Moulik (kid) were in Mumbai i had nothing better to do. So i came back home, had a clean shave, put on formals and left for the airport.

We reached airport at 2.30 in night and the driver wanted to have some food as Ramzan is in process and he can only have food till 4.00. I was in a dilemma whether to ask him to go for food or no as the flight was scheduled to land at 2.55 and i was sure that the driver would not be back on time. However i allowed him to go ahead and have food.

The flight was on time (it generally will be when u do not want it to be). Mr. Saxena shook the hands and i told him that the car would take sometime due to Ramzan. He was absoutely cool about it, this was at 3.00 in night. I was really impressed. He started his discussion with ISB and how he has been associated with the institution, then the discussion shifted to INSEAD and life of an MBA student there. It was almost half an hour we were standing outside the airport and discussing about MBA and he was least bothered about the delay in car. Have never seen such a down to earth CEO. Finally the car came at 3.30 and we started for ISB. While in the car the discussion went on to the hottest topic, the financial mess. I liked his views; it happens every decade. It will come and go and come again. The only difference is the % fall in every crash has been higher than the previous one. Few rules of investing that he followed; never invest in a single asset class, never take a loan or always try to repay the loan as soon as possible and never trade in derivative, the weapons of mass destruction. He recommended a book 'richest man in barbelon'.

It took us an hour to reach ISB and I should pat my back was able to keep the CEO involved in a discussion for more than an hour. It was a great drive, i never thought i would be able to keep on chatting with him and also make him chat for the entire drive...