Cover Gautam Kumra, chairman of McKinsey’s offices in Asia (Photo: courtesy of McKinsey)
Gautam Kumra, chairman of McKinsey’s offices in Asia (Photo: courtesy of McKinsey)
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The chairman of McKinsey’s Asia offices, Gautam Kumra, spoke to Tatler about his new book—and what’s surprised him after 30 years of advising founders and CEOs across the region
Over the past two decades, a coterie of founder-led companies has driven a disproportionate share of Asia’s economic growth, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co.—think Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries in India, Suphachai Chearavanont’s CP Group in Thailand, and Fang Hongbo’s Midea Group in mainland China.
In their book Shapers and Founders: The Untold Stories of Asia’s Extraordinary Owner-CEOs, published in September, McKinsey Asia (ex-China) chairman Gautam Kumra, senior partner Joydeep Sengupta and partner Cheryl Lim examine the psychology behind the leaders driving these companies forward. The co-authors point to six key “behaviours” among operators: to be “driven by mission”; to have “a telescope in one eye, a microscope in the other”; to be “bold but bounded”; to “innovate with both a big and small ‘i’”; to “derive extraordinary outcomes from talent”; and to “scale without losing soul”.
Kumra—who discussed Shapers and Founders at the 2026 Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore—spoke with Tatler about his take on the motivations, risk appetites and overarching mindsets of the region’s business elite.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Across the six behaviours and eighteen mindsets detailed in your book, Shapers and Founders, what distinguishes a helpful insight from existing advice that readers can find online? For instance, the notion of “making your own luck” (under the chapter, “Bold but Bounded”) isn’t necessarily a new idea.
Some of these behaviours might not be new, but what the book offers is the “how” these extraordinary Asian owner-CEOs bring ideas to practice, repeatedly, and at scale. In a region where ownership structures and time horizons are different to those of listed companies, we have top owner-CEOs providing practices and examples from a vastly different perspective.
Under “Bold but Bounded,” for example, the book does not just say “manage your risk.” It shows precisely how Kaspi’s Mikhail Lomtadze kept 80% of his product development team together for almost 20 years by betting on the right founders’ team instead of optimising for short-term talent flexibility.
Gautam Kumra, chairman of McKinsey’s offices in Asia (Photo: courtesy of McKinsey)
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We have Japan’s Itaru Tanimura at M3 launching one doctor use case at a time, spending only on the blade’s edge rather than scaling prematurely. And it shows how Jio was only possible because of the capital Mukesh Ambani had already built at Reliance Industries in energy—going all in where the balance sheet allowed it, and nowhere else. These are not generic principles. They are operating practices that can be examined, tested, and, with appropriate adaptation, applied.
Given that your book examines the psychology of these owner-CEOs, what’s your read on the role of ego in the entrepreneurial journey?
Rather than ego, the more useful frame, I think, is conviction with purpose. What we found in these conversations was a strong self-belief, but it was always grounded in mission. Their ambition was rarely about personal success alone. Again and again, it was directed toward something beyond—building an institution, transforming a market, or contributing to their country and society.
Every owner-CEO we spoke to conveyed a sense of intent larger than the business itself. They often set their ambitions in a national or societal context. When Mukesh Ambani launched Jio in India, he wanted it to succeed commercially, but he also hoped it would spur the digitisation of India. Suphachai Chearavanont took a similar view at CP Group when he stood his ground when regulatory obstacles threatened its 3G rollout in Thailand, as he believed that it would create value for the country and its people. When Ho Hung Anh built Techcombank, his ambition was to build a bank intertwined with Vietnam’s development. In his words, when the country, its businesses and its people thrive, returns will follow. There is an intrinsic mission that is bigger than the owner-CEOs themselves.
Leadership at this level is not about eliminating tensions or contradictions—it is about becoming exceptionally good at managing them.
Even with incredible successes under their belt, what was common across the interviewees was humility and a commitment to continuous learning. One of the common traits we found across the group was the belief that you can learn something from almost anyone—whether a junior colleague, someone from another industry, or even a competitor. Anand Mahindra at Mahindra & Mahindra is a vivid illustration of this. Despite leading one of India’s most storied conglomerates, he describes his approach to leadership as one of perpetual curiosity.
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Across hundreds of hours of conversation, what insights or quotes surprised you? Has the process of writing this book changed your own perspective on leadership?
The biggest surprise was how well these owner-CEOs manage contradictions. As [the American author] F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, the test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. That quality turned out to be the defining characteristic of this group. They think in decades but obsess over today’s performance. They make enormous bets but are rigorous about the downside. They scale aggressively but fight to preserve their entrepreneurial soul. That was probably the perspective shift for us. Leadership at this level is not about eliminating tensions or contradictions—it is about becoming exceptionally good at managing them.
Risk was perhaps the most vivid example of this. We went in expecting “swashbuckling risk-takers” and found sophisticated risk managers. From the outside, some of their decisions look audacious—from UOB’s acquisition and regional expansion during the Covid-19 period to Sun Pharma’s significant investment in products before regulations and import logistics were assured. But this only happens after meticulous calculation of the worst-case scenario and ensuring it is survivable. Sun Pharma’s Dilip Shanghvi asks whether he can live with it. Gulf Development’s Sarath Ratanavadi in Thailand asks whether it can be managed. In many cases, their mastery of risk is precisely what gives them the confidence to be bold.
Personally, I have been fortunate enough to know some of the owner-CEOs we interviewed for decades, so I inevitably went into these conversations believing I already knew something about how they led. But sitting down with them specifically to understand what shaped them, how they think, and why they operate the way they do made me look at many of their stories with fresh eyes.
It has also made me reflect on my own leadership. At McKinsey, our partners are also owners of the firm, so I found myself asking what it really means to show up with an owner’s mindset. One of the ideas that stayed with me from these conversations is that ownership brings a different time horizon and a different sense of responsibility. These leaders are not simply managing the institution in front of them; they are constantly thinking about what they are building, what they will leave behind, and whether it will endure beyond them. For me, that has reinforced the idea that stewardship is not simply about protecting what we have been given. It is about having the ambition, conviction, and responsibility to leave the institution stronger for those that follow.
Trust is earned through consistency over time and by being useful rather than by being right.
Most executives reading this book may not be founders themselves. What is the single most useful thing a professional CEO or board member can draw from an owner-CEO’s mindset?
Professional CEOs operate under different constraints, but they can still adopt a founder’s mindset. Especially amid today’s “perma-crisis” of geopolitical uncertainty, unpredictable trade that is reconfiguring, and the rapid pace of AI, we acknowledge that the modern CEO faces a daunting in-tray. They must deliver consistent short-term returns for an expectant market while attempting to pilot for long-term megatrends, whereas owner-CEOs can think across generations with less constraint. Yet, the best owner-CEOs show that long-term ambition and short-term performance are not mutually exclusive.
One of the most important takeaways for a professional CEO is the ability to be decisive while managing contradictions. Owner-CEOs (as mentioned above) show a rare duality: the ability to hold apparently contradictory strategies simultaneously—a skill that has never been more useful than it is today. They plan for change on a generational timeframe yet pay fastidious attention to the short-term needs of the business. They can make transformational big bets but are rigorous about risk management from day to day. They are guided by an objective far bigger than profit—and by it, they achieve great profitability. Professional CEOs today may operate with a different ownership structure or generational time horizon, but they can develop the same capacity to manage competing priorities without slowing decision-making.
In fact, leading professional CEOs already display many of these behaviours, overcoming the restrictions of fixed tenures, quarterly reporting and limited personal equity. Piyush Gupta at Singapore’s DBS embodied [the behaviour of having a] “telescope in one eye, a microscope in the other”—looking beyond the quarterly cycle, aligning the board and management around a long-term digital transformation, securing incremental investment despite near-term trade-offs, and ultimately reimagining the customer experience. Kazuo Hirai showed how professional CEOs can be “bold but bounded”—using risk as an enabler, not a brake. At a pivotal moment for Sony, he paired the willingness to make decisive moves with the discipline to focus the company on where it could win. By shedding legacy businesses, concentrating resources, and continuing to back new ideas, he helped renew Sony and set it on a path toward record profitability.
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Ultimately, when building and maintaining relationships with high-ranking executives, how do you earn their trust while knowing when to challenge their ideas in an advisory capacity?
Trust is earned through consistency over time and by being useful rather than by being right. With senior leaders, showing up consistently is half the game; what matters is how you show up: to listen, to understand their agenda, and to bring ideas or people who can genuinely make a difference. The objective is not to walk into the room and demonstrate that you have the answer. It is to demonstrate that you understand what they are trying to achieve and that you are invested in helping them achieve it.
Challenging ideas are accepted once someone has already demonstrated they are on your side and in service of their mission—rather than from a desire to prove them wrong. The strongest advisory relationships are not built on agreement. Challenge becomes valuable when the executive knows it comes in service of their mission. That means listening first, understanding the context, and then being prepared to say: “There may be another way to look at this.” Trust without challenge risks becoming affirmation; challenge without trust rarely gets heard. You need both.
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The founders in this book model this in their own organisations. Takahisa Takahara at Japan’s Unicharm places enormous value on getting primary information directly—what he calls “enriching your own drawer”—spending time with customers and in stores rather than relying solely on reports to shape his view. Uday Kotak of Kotak Mahindra Bank brings a different perspective: he warns that “the lessons of history can become the baggage of history”—experience should inform a decision, but not to let past successes or failures constrain a new situation. Narayana Murthy brings a different form of challenge: he challenges judgment with data. At Infosys, he put quantitative analysis at the heart of decision-making, using data to test assumptions before applying senior judgment. The broader lesson is not to become captive to your own intuition.
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Cat Wang is an editor at Tatler Asia based in Hong Kong, where she covers business, wealth, innovation, and impact. Previously, she was a Forbes Asia reporter and assistant editor of the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, spotlighting startups and small companies on the rise across the Asia-Pacific. She began her career as a trainee reporter at the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s newspaper of record. Born in New York City, she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in political science.
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