IMA Insights

IMA India
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  • EVERY TWO WEEKS

IMA India's Podcast offers insights on the Indian economy, politics, business environment and functional areas for CXOs and senior management.

  1. 26 OCT

    History & Heritage: Paliwal Brahmins

    Your columnist traces his roots to the Paliwal Brahmins of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert, a once-prosperous community that turned the sands of Pali into farmland and bustling trade. Their abrupt exodus centuries ago, driven by excessive taxes and the cruelty of rulers, left over eighty villages deserted.  Many migrated to other parts of Rajasthan, UP, Punjab, Haryana and the Himalayan foothills, carrying with them the habits of enterprise that had made them flourish. Some, drawn to the ascetic spirit of western India, embraced Jainism and spread further across the subcontinent. What was lost was not merely a people, but a finely balanced economy. Their story endures as a warning that when political greed overwhelms productive energy, even the most resilient societies can wither into dust. The attached podcast explains.

    5 min

  2. 24 OCT

    POLITICS & ECONOMY: URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE

    India’s cities, once symbols of ambition, are now choking under filth, traffic and civic neglect. The solution will not come from politics but from enterprise. A “Clean Cities Compact” could unite business groups, local chambers and civic volunteers under a common banner to fund pilot projects, benchmark urban performance and publicly rate municipalities.   City leadership awards and transparent audits, modelled on corporate disclosure standards, could shame or celebrate performance. The aim is not to replace government but to compel it to function, backed by business skill and sustained public pressure. Only then can India’s cities become places where people wish to live, not merely work. The attached podcast explains.

    5 min
  3. Armenians by Adit Jain

    13 OCT

    Armenians by Adit Jain

    Continuing our series on India’s merchant classes, this week’s column turns to the Armenians, who arrived during the reign of the Great Mughals. Scattered at first, they later anchored themselves in Calcutta and Madras, then the twin capitals of British India’s trade. A small community remains in Calcutta, but most departed around Independence, to Britain, Australia and later Armenia after 1991. Your columnist, while at school in Asansol, remembers a few Armenian classmates, pale-skinned and brown-haired boarders from Calcutta, who spoke Bengali and Hindi with ease and were as Indian as the rest of the lads. Like the Chinese of Tangra, they were as Indian as the rest of the lads These essays aim to trace how such merchant communities, foreign in origin but Indian in spirit, shaped the country’s commercial and architectural fabric.

    5 min
  4. Update: US India Relations by Adit Jain

    13 OCT

    Update: US India Relations by Adit Jain

    The relationship between India and the United States will, in many ways, define the fate of the Western alliance and the balance of power in the decades ahead. Washington’s turn to transactional behaviour risks undoing years of careful diplomacy and mutual trust. India, for its part, has drawn its red lines and held firm, signalling a new maturity in foreign policy.   As the West fumbles and China courts India, New Delhi's choices will shape the architecture of the future world order. Pakistan, ever opportunistic, remains a sideshow. The real contest lies between America, India and China, each now testing how power and patience can coexist in a restless new age.  This podcast explains.

    10 min

  5. 10 OCT

    Building Resilience in Uncertain Times

    In an environment where volatility is unrelenting and risks extend well beyond finance, the remit of the CFO has become that of an enterprise risk leader. At a recent India CFO Forum session inMumbai, Rajeev Gupta, CFO of L&T Technology Services and Surendra Goyal, Global CFO of Birla Carbon, drew on decades of experience to examine how organisations can strengthen resilience. They highlighted that the real task for finance leaders today is not only to manage balance sheets but to anticipate shocks, eliminate known risks, prepare for the unknown and embed risk awareness deep into organisational culture.   The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but briefly:   Today’s CFOs are enterprise risk leaders, tasked with anticipating and mitigating financial, operational, regulatory, ESG, cyber and reputational shocks.Known risks (compliance, forex volatility, credit exposures), can be eliminated or controlled. Unknown ones (pandemics, regulatory shocks) demand planning, contingency reserves and cultural readiness.Building resilience requires balancing speed and caution: when to respond instantly and when to pause, gather intelligence and avoid fuelling misinformation.Effective risk management is about mindset and culture as much as systems. Resilience stems from diversification—of supply chains, investors, financing structures, even information – allowing organisations to withstand disruption.CFOs hold a central role in shaping organisational culture, training frontline leaders and embedding risk awareness across teams.

    10 min

  6. 10 OCT

    The Future of Leadership: From Command to Collaboration

    In an age where volatility has become the default and hierarchies are flattening under the weight of technology, leadership must shift from command-and-control to collaboration and influence. At a recent joint session of the India CEO, CFO, CHRO and CMO Forums in Delhi, Shiv Shivakumar, Operating Partner at Advent International, drew on decades of experience leading some of India’s most recognised companies to outline how leaders, Boards and organisations must reinvent themselves.  He emphasised that the future would belong not to managers who issue directives but to leaders capable of fostering collaboration, cutting through complexity and anchoring resilience.   The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but in brief:   Leadership in the 21st century is being shaped by volatility, with uncertainty rising in both frequency and magnitude.Companies that anticipate change significantly outperform the laggards; agility and foresight are now the decisive differentiators.Organisations must move from vertical integration and over-management to flatter structures, horizontal careers and true leadership rather than instruction.CEOs face shorter tenures, greater regulatory oversight and rising pressure to build personal brands, making authenticity, courage and collaboration indispensable.Boards must shift from passive oversight to active value creation, aligning themselves with strategic pillars and contributing domain expertise.Sustainable leadership rests on self-accountability, honest conversations and building collaborative cultures where dissent fuels progress.

    12 min

  7. 10 OCT

    Navigating the Talent Paradox in the Human Cloud Era

    In an era where work is being reshaped by automation, AI and fluid workforce models, the role of leadership is no longer simply to manage people but to design the very architecture of talent. At a recent India CHRO Forum session in Delhi NCR, Antony Alex, Founder and CEO of Rainmaker, argued that the real challenge lies not in choosing between technology and talent, but in weaving them into a symbiotic whole. Drawing on his expertise in corporate governance and workplace ethics, he highlighted how the human cloud era demands organisations that balance efficiency with empathy, and algorithms with distinctly human strengths. His central message was clear: theCHRO is uniquely placed to architect the blueprint for the workforce of the future.   The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but briefly:   AI will free up human capacity, but sustainable advantage will lie in creativity, empathy and purpose. The paradox is not tech vs talent, but how to design a symbiotic model where automation and human capability reinforce one another.Workforce structures are shifting: from headcount to capability architecture, static roles to fluid skills and full-time employees to blended ecosystems.Generational divides, digital-native impatience versus legacy-system experience, demand rethinking feedback, communication and social bonding.Efficiency must be balanced with well-being, autonomy with algorithm and dashboards with ‘human signals’.CHROs are uniquely placed to architect this future through transparent communication, learning cultures and co-creation.

    8 min

  8. 30 SEPT

    Innovation as a Growth Enabler for India

    In a world where competitive advantages erode faster than ever, the pursuit of leadership is no longer about scale or dominance but about sustained distinctiveness. At a recent session of the India CEO Forum in Mumbai, Shishir Joshipura, former MD of Praj Industries, set out a compelling case for treating innovation not as a toolkit but as a cultural anchor. He argued that true growthemerges when organisations stop chasing quarterly wins and instead build systems that outlast individuals. Innovation, in his telling, is the lever that enables businesses not merely to play the game better, but to rewrite the rules altogether.   The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but briefly:   The true race for organisations is to be unique, not number one; sustained advantage comes from creating distinctiveness that is hard to replicate.Leaders must build for perpetuity and optionality, looking beyond quarterly results to ensure resilience and long-term relevance.Innovation is a mindset and culture, not a tool; embedding it as a core value is essential to drive systemic change.Active listening to customers, cross-disciplinary collaboration and employee pride form the bedrock of an innovation ecosystem.Innovation can be incremental, disruptive or breakthrough in nature. Leaders must personally champion the latter two while creating systems that tolerate and learn from failure.For MNCs, the guiding principle is to be local as much as necessary, global as much aspossible; speed and action bias often matter more than consensus.

    9 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

IMA India's Podcast offers insights on the Indian economy, politics, business environment and functional areas for CXOs and senior management.

Information

  • Creator
    IMA India
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    303
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 IMA Insights
  • Show Website
    IMA Insights