Dinesh Mirchandani

Regional director, APAC; president, India, Boyden World

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Company Info: Boyden World

Web site: www.boyden.com

Address: 2nd floor, Phoenix House 'A' Wing, 462, SB Road, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013, India

Phone: 91 22 6660-7724

E-mail: search@boyden.in

Advice: Expose yourself to as wide a range of experiences, academic knowledge, and cultures as you possibly can. Challenge yourself to raise your game in everything you do. Fail often, but only if you can extract a lesson from each of your mistakes; otherwise try not to fail too much or you will be out. Know your values, and if you are unsure of them, seek help. Be not a slave to technology, but its best customer. Maintain a sense of balance in everything. It's all about people, people, people, so step up to lead only if you are ready to embrace that fact.

Qualities sought in emerging leaders: Credibility: Credibility is competence, capability, and character combined in a secret recipe. Add a dash of charisma, and you get leadership. I also look for resilience, the ability to connect with a wide range of people, and a healthy sense of humor. In today’s flattened business model, you need to as much “lead from the side” as well as be able to lead from the front.

Sector specialization: Technology, financial services, real estate and infrastructure, manufacturing, consumer products

Job function specialization: C-suite, R&D chiefs, HR executives

Geographical Focus: Global

Companies I often recruit for: BP; Mahindra & Mahindra; Barclays Bank; Agilent Technologies; Novartis

Favorite historical figure: Emperor Akbar the Great

Education: Birla Institute of Technology & Science, BE, EEE 1981; North Carolina State Univ., MS, Computer Studies, 1984; Boston Univ., MBA 1993; Northwestern Univ., Boyden-Kellogg AMP, 1998

Languages: English, Hindi

Employment history: Boyden World, Control Individual, Boyden India, and Director, Global Boyden Board, 2000 to present; Mumbai, 1994 to present; Digital Equipment Corp., Principal Software Engineer, 1985-94; IDM Pvt., Systems Analyst, 1981-83

Other interests: Music, travel, people-watching

Professional/Membership Affiliations: AESC, TiE, BITS Alumni Assn.

Experience in executive search consulting: 13 years

High Profile Placement: Director, HP Labs, India, 2005

Other paths I might have pursued: Venture capitalist