LOOK HOMEWARD, CFOS
By Mike Chambers

Since the ‘90s, the trend for many Asian workers was to move out of their home market and grow their careers through international experience. Many countries have felt the sting of this brain drain. Some even sent millions of people overseas to study and train in an attempt to feed their growing economies’ need for skilled workers.

For India, too many stayed abroad. Now it seems the tide is turning as more and more Indian companies are succeeding in pulling back talented professionals to their homeland.

Aditya Birla Retail, the Indian supermarket giant, scored big recently when it convinced Giri Giridhard to leave his job in pinstriped London for the teeming streets of Mumbai. Giridhard had spent the last five and a half years abroad, first in Singapore and finally in the UK. He was business development director at advertising agency Diageo when Aditya Birla called.

“My wife and I wanted to get back to spend more time with parents and give the kids a more Indian upbringing,” explains Giridhard. And he is not alone, as more non-resident Indian executives also look to cash in on the booming Indian economy. “It is difficult to generalize—however, we are seeing some trend to move back to India,” he says.

With the market for finance top guns still tight worldwide, however, only time will tell how successful emerging-market companies will be in enticing expats home. According to a survey conducted late last year by financial recruiting firm Robert Half International, Asia has been hit especially hard by the general lack of qualified candidates. For instance, the survey found that 82 percent and 83 percent of respondents from Hong Kong and Japan, respectively, found it challenging to find skilled finance professionals.

Giridhard hopes that his expertise working with new technologies will help modernize and streamline finance operations at Aditya Birla. What would he most like to see more widely utilized? “Business performance management is probably the biggest,” he says. One concern for returning executives is how the workings of an Indian conglomerate differ from a big MNC. In this case at least, the returnee may end up helping transform the Indian firm, instead of adjusting to its ways.