Thinkers 50: Business Thought Leaders from India: The Best Ideas on Innovation, Management, Strategy, and Leadership

CHAPTER 4

Making It Happen

Ram Charan and Subir Chowdhury

There is something inspiringly pragmatic and adaptive about many of the Indian thinkers and corporate leaders we have met. This was brought home to us when we met Vivek Singh, CEO and executive chef of the Cinnamon Club group of restaurants in London.

In the late 1990s, Singh’s career in India was well set. He was working at the Rajvilas Hotel—72 luxurious rooms set in 32 acres of land. And then, by chance, Singh encountered Iqbal Wahhab, a Bangladeshi-born Briton who had launched Tandoori magazine in the United Kingdom and was then in the process of developing ideas and raising capital to launch what would become the Cinnamon Club. He and Wahhab kept in touch, and eventually Singh was ...