I discovered a great company with the most iconic brands in audio and a very good reputation in the auto industry……
Few
CEO’s would accept a job where three previous ones were shown the door
in under 2 years. However, Dinesh Paliwal is not among those. He
accepted the leadership position at Harman International even as the
company was in dire straits with costs running haywire, a dwindling
products line and a shrinking client base.
Already having a
storied career at ABB, Paliwal accepted the top job at Harman
International as a challenge to revive an iconic company hurtling south
and transformed the company from a founder-run, top down culture to one
that is customer-centric and innovation driven, including building a
diverse board and strong leadership team, expanding the company’s
business in high growth emerging markets and instituting best in class
operating processes that have resulted in top- and bottom line growth.
Early Days and Education
Born
in Agra on December 17, 1957, Dinesh C. Paliwal holds a BS in Physics
and Chemistry from St. John's College of Agra University, India in 1976
and MS in Paper Science and Engineering from The Indian Institute of
Technology, Roorkee, India in 1979. He completed his MBA in Finance from
Miami University, Ohio, USA in 1985 and Masters in Applied Sciences and
Engineering from Miami University, U.S.A. in 1983.
So the foundations for brilliant career were well and trully laid:
Career Spark
Dinesh
C. Paliwal served as a President and CEO of Harman International since
July 1, 2007, and was appointed Chairman on July 1, 2008. He led several
significant change initiatives at Harman and instituted numerous
programs to simplify & strengthen company’s operations. To put the
company on a profitable growth trajectory, he transformed the entire
company culture from scratch and launched STEP Change Program in mid
2008 so as to introduce best in class business processes which delivered
an unprecedented US $ 400 Million in sustained cost savings.
The Start
Dinesh
has worked in 6 countries and and lived in 4 continents, including
United States, China, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, and India,
learning the importance of different work cultures, ethics, discipline
and focusing on deliverables. Prior to joining Harman, Dinesh spent 22
years with ABB Group, where he last held the dual roles of President of
ABB Group with responsibility for the company’s global P&L, and
Chairman/CEO-ABB North America. He eliminated cultural and
organizational silos among multiple P&L operations globally to
achieve profitable growth for multi-billion North American operations
following 18 years of losses.
The Growth
Leading
Harman since 2007, Paliwal acted as veteran of the corporate
turn-around, who earlier proved his determination at Swiss-based
automation provider ABB. Paliwal has overseen development of Clari-Fi, a
technology that restores nuances that get lost when music is digitally
compressed. Strong demand from clients like Ferrari, BMW, Audi and
Chrysler turned Harman into a Wall Street Darling, beating analysts’
earnings estimates 7 quarters in a row. Business grew so fast that
Paliwal announced US $ 500 Million share buy-back over the next 3 years.
Problems & Takeover
To
bring the company on lucrative path, he transformed company’s culture
and launched best in class business processes which delivered an
unprecedented $450 million in sustained cost savings. He indentified
areas of overspending, placed several processes, as a result brought
costs drastically down and heavily invested those savings into company’s
R&D in order to deliver on complex projects.
In 18 months,
Dinesh built team from scratch. Except for one person, every other
person came from outside in order to have a global team. They have a
whole new mindset: cultural diversity, different needs & new
consumer insights. He recently launched first social-networking
technology that serves to warfare drivers’ distraction, meet auto
regulations and bring 4G smartphone functionality to the car.
Dinesh
with his pioneering leadership, took Harman center stage at the Grammy
Awards and on American Idol, where its systems were featured. BMW,
Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and GM rely on Harman, too. A recent core
development was Quantum Logic. Harman developed an algorithm to sit on
top of compressed music and recreate its profile. Paliwal has cheerfully
driven a boom to new technologies and created new solution concepts.
Cloud, Connective Lifestyle, Signal Processing and Mobility are areas
where Harman has taken a deep dive.
Harman has recently introduced
diverse products and technologies, including timely initiatives as its
energy efficient GreenEdge Technologies, new acoustics-sound management
solutions for electric cars, and a new scalable automotive infotainment
system. Dinesh thinks that his global exposure has educated him on
importance of work cultures, ethics, discipline, a sense of purpose and
focus on deliverables. Whether its food, music, or cultural values, he
has a deep appreciation for global diversity, and this is a quality he
looks for in his senior team as well.
Family
Dinesh
is married to Ila, a renowned Hindustani classical vocalist and
philanthropist & have two children Shriya and Aasheesh.
Awards & Accolades
|
| Adjudged
as Metro New York Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young and
received the Indian American Achiever Award by the Global Organization
of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) in 2010. |
| 'Bestowed
with the ‘Pinnacle Award’ as one of the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans
in Business by Asian American Business Development Center in 2012. |
| 'Named to Fortune's Business Person of the Year List in 2014. |
Professional Affiliations
In addition to the Harman board, Dinesh serves as a member of: |
| 'Board of Bristol-Myers Squibb. |
| Boards TYCO International, ADT and Embarq Corporation |
| 'Business Roundtable based in Washington, DC. |
| 'Economic Advisor to the Governor of Guangdong Province, China for 3 years |
| 'Served as Chairman of National Foreign Trade Council,
ABB India Ltd., Lummus Global (An Oil and Gas Technology Company) and
Director for US China Business Council, US India Business Council and
International Swimming Hall of Fame. |
Other Affiliations
|
| ABB Ltd |
| 'Bristol-Myers Squibb Company |
| 'Tyco International Ltd. |
| ABB India Limited |
| 'Miami University |
| 'ABB Inc. |
| 'Roorkee University, India |
| 'IIT Council |
| 'ABB Schweiz AG |
| 'Embarq Corporation |
| 'Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee |
| 'The National Foreign Trade Council |
| 'Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University |
| '3dB Research Ltd. |
| 'The ADT Corporation |
Quotes |
| I discovered a great company with the most iconic brands in audio and a very good reputation in the auto industry |
| I
was quite ecstatic to take up the role. Harman was known to be a good
company with great products and business prospects and turning the
company’s fortune for good was a challenge that I was aspiring to take. |
| I have always said you cannot be a sustainable profit leader if you don't have the sustainable cost advantage.. |
| I have a very clear bias for people who have lived in different countries |
| What you call will power, I call massive courage. Passion. |
| I'm here to make this company win long-term |
| It is a matter of recognizing that people can’t be expected to put aside their connected lifestyle when they get in a car. |
| I got my bearings as to what goes on in labs, I understood that to teach you have to learn |
| I challenge my CTO and Researchers to see where we can focus to develop our own. |
| Change
is a very big deal and I worked hard with my board to determine what we
really care about and what our philosophy of reaching out is beyond new
cars. |
| Whatever
we develop in the western world, sometimes we over engineer it,
sometimes we completely miss the real need of customers in other markets
like South America or Asia. |
| If a man is not almost paranoid about innovation then there is something wrong with him. |
| When
something is extremely well that means I am not thinking about other
things as much as I should, I should be thinking about what could be
disruptive to a well run product. |
| Most
people think that innovation always comes from the western world and
this is far from the truth. In my experience, innovation can come from
anywhere in this world and all you need to do is motivate and unleash
the energy |
| I believe that one can not be the profit leader without being the cost leader |
| I
believe in people, their strength of conviction and ideas. It’s been
proven to me time and again if you can light the passion within talented
individuals, their potential is unlimited |
| Extending
this technology to our consumer and professional audio systems will
also help to save energy use and carbon emissions around the world |
|
|