R. Gopalakrishnan

R. GOPALAKRISHNAN is author, speaker and corporate advisor, with a career spanning over 50 years. He spent 31 years in Hindustan Unilever Limited, where he rose to be vice chairman, followed by 19 years in Tata Sons as a director. He now serves as non-executive chairman of Castrol India; an independent director of Hemas Holdings PLC, Sri Lanka; executive-in-residence of S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai and distinguished professor of IIT, Kharagpur.

He has authored nine books so far, notably A Comma in a Sentence, Six Lenses and Doodles on Leadership. PALLAVI MODY, professor at SPJIMR, feels that her core competence lies in simplifying jargon. A prolific writer of business cases and op-eds in financial dailies, she is deeply interested in value creation by corporates who build and lead the India story.