One day in the early 1990s, when Krishna Mikkilineni worked in Honeywell, US, as engineering manager, he ran into the then chairman of Honeywell. They got into a conversation and Mikkilineni at one point told him, "A guy like me, with a background from India, will never be on your staff. You guys are all white people." The chairman replied: "Don't be so sure, it's not a conspiracy of white people trying to keep away other people."
The reply didn't convince Mikkilineni and he lived life convinced about the glass ceiling. Until last year, when the $33-billion, New Jersey-based Honeywell elevated Mikkilineni to its executive management team, reporting directly to chairman and CEO David M Cote. He was also designated as the head of Honeywell's global engineering and operations, including all its factories. And he was asked to fulfill his responsibilities based out of Bangalore.
"Now I feel my conviction was a myth," says Mikkilineni, who now constantly jets around the world, to the multiple locations that Honeywell has operations in. "Now that I see it from a truly global perspective, I think what matters is the capability, the talent, the energy, the passion, the ability to work with other people and make things happen. It does not matter that your colour is white or black or brown."
He says his earlier attitude had an impact on his previous role as head of Honeywell Technology Solutions (HTS), which has much of its employee base in India. "I used to think it's HTS versusthe rest of the world. Now I feel we are part of the world. Indians have this attitude of blaming somebody, including God. If you ask somebody why he hadn't completed a certain task, you are likely to be told something like: `I tried to, but these guys in Phoenix did not give me the right inputs at the right time'. As if their job is only to do this, and not that. My response is, you wouldn't have to get inputs if you were capable. You did not raise yourself to that level where you did not need those inputs from Phoenix."
Today he's convinced that if you have a powerful idea, if you have a powerful business case, people will provide money. Mikkilineni says one of his major tasks in his current role would be to try and convey this perspective to the folks in India. "If I can do that, there would be a significant change," he says.
Mikkilineni, 52, grew up in different cities in India, because his father worked in multiple places. But Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh was where he spent the longest time, when he did engineering at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. He went on to do a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida, worked with Honeywell for 10 years inArizona, and then came to Bangalore in 1994 to establish HTS.
HTS provides engineering support to Honeywell's strategic business groups, and has grown to more than 7,500 engineers across India, China and Eastern Europe. That's close to a third of Honeywell's total engineering workforce. Mikkilineni says HTS would have participated significantly in at least 30% of Honeywell's global products. "We contributed a lot of software content, but we also contributed in almost all engineering areas - electronics, mechanical, instrumentation, materials. In avionics, we had significant responsibility in areas like flight management and controls. We also did major work in process controls for the power market, billing controls for utilities, turbo chargers for small cars. The Tata Nano uses our turbo charger."
In his executive management role now, he continues to be based in Bangalore for two reasons: there's a heavy technology orientation today in all Honeywell products and much of the growth now is in emerging markets. "Bangalore is ideally positioned to provide leadership on these fronts," he says. This is the first time that Honeywell's overall engineering and manufacturing leadership -- across its four businesses of avionics, controls, transportation and materials -- has been located outside the US.
"I'm trying to ensure that the entire fabric of the company is looking at where the growth is. It's not just the emerging market guys who need to look at the emerging markets. We have to orient all resources in this direction. In my current role, I'm able to influence the entire value chain."
So what are these emerging market issues he's looking to tackle? There are a host of them across Honeywell's businesses. He's looking at turbochargers that can bring fuel savings and lower emissions even in India's frequent start-stop traffic conditions, heat and dust.
He's looking at energy efficiency, given the massive shortage of power in emerging markets. "People don't realise it, but there's a lot of inefficiency even in borewell motor pumps," he says. He's trying to put sensors in power equipment to identify power wastage, leakage, theft or overloading, and send alerts to mobile phones for immediate action.
Mikkilineni says Honeywell internally uses a complete portfolio of technologies, green fuels, and consumption side equipment. "If the world just uses what Honeywell uses today, it will save around 25% of power." For the future, he's lining up products that can make this even better.
The reply didn't convince Mikkilineni and he lived life convinced about the glass ceiling. Until last year, when the $33-billion, New Jersey-based Honeywell elevated Mikkilineni to its executive management team, reporting directly to chairman and CEO David M Cote. He was also designated as the head of Honeywell's global engineering and operations, including all its factories. And he was asked to fulfill his responsibilities based out of Bangalore.
"Now I feel my conviction was a myth," says Mikkilineni, who now constantly jets around the world, to the multiple locations that Honeywell has operations in. "Now that I see it from a truly global perspective, I think what matters is the capability, the talent, the energy, the passion, the ability to work with other people and make things happen. It does not matter that your colour is white or black or brown."
He says his earlier attitude had an impact on his previous role as head of Honeywell Technology Solutions (HTS), which has much of its employee base in India. "I used to think it's HTS versusthe rest of the world. Now I feel we are part of the world. Indians have this attitude of blaming somebody, including God. If you ask somebody why he hadn't completed a certain task, you are likely to be told something like: `I tried to, but these guys in Phoenix did not give me the right inputs at the right time'. As if their job is only to do this, and not that. My response is, you wouldn't have to get inputs if you were capable. You did not raise yourself to that level where you did not need those inputs from Phoenix."
Today he's convinced that if you have a powerful idea, if you have a powerful business case, people will provide money. Mikkilineni says one of his major tasks in his current role would be to try and convey this perspective to the folks in India. "If I can do that, there would be a significant change," he says.
Mikkilineni, 52, grew up in different cities in India, because his father worked in multiple places. But Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh was where he spent the longest time, when he did engineering at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. He went on to do a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida, worked with Honeywell for 10 years inArizona, and then came to Bangalore in 1994 to establish HTS.
HTS provides engineering support to Honeywell's strategic business groups, and has grown to more than 7,500 engineers across India, China and Eastern Europe. That's close to a third of Honeywell's total engineering workforce. Mikkilineni says HTS would have participated significantly in at least 30% of Honeywell's global products. "We contributed a lot of software content, but we also contributed in almost all engineering areas - electronics, mechanical, instrumentation, materials. In avionics, we had significant responsibility in areas like flight management and controls. We also did major work in process controls for the power market, billing controls for utilities, turbo chargers for small cars. The Tata Nano uses our turbo charger."
In his executive management role now, he continues to be based in Bangalore for two reasons: there's a heavy technology orientation today in all Honeywell products and much of the growth now is in emerging markets. "Bangalore is ideally positioned to provide leadership on these fronts," he says. This is the first time that Honeywell's overall engineering and manufacturing leadership -- across its four businesses of avionics, controls, transportation and materials -- has been located outside the US.
"I'm trying to ensure that the entire fabric of the company is looking at where the growth is. It's not just the emerging market guys who need to look at the emerging markets. We have to orient all resources in this direction. In my current role, I'm able to influence the entire value chain."
So what are these emerging market issues he's looking to tackle? There are a host of them across Honeywell's businesses. He's looking at turbochargers that can bring fuel savings and lower emissions even in India's frequent start-stop traffic conditions, heat and dust.
He's looking at energy efficiency, given the massive shortage of power in emerging markets. "People don't realise it, but there's a lot of inefficiency even in borewell motor pumps," he says. He's trying to put sensors in power equipment to identify power wastage, leakage, theft or overloading, and send alerts to mobile phones for immediate action.
Mikkilineni says Honeywell internally uses a complete portfolio of technologies, green fuels, and consumption side equipment. "If the world just uses what Honeywell uses today, it will save around 25% of power." For the future, he's lining up products that can make this even better.
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