Desis hold sway over Mittal empire

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" justify="">NEW DELHI: Emperors need generals. The third richest man in the world, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, has created a global empire stretching four continents with revenues of $32 billion and capacity of 70 million tonnes. Not even one dollar of this revenue is earned in India. Not one tonne of steel is manufactured in India.Yet many of Mittal’s leading generals belong to his homeland.<br /><br />Both the president and CFO of Mittal Steel Company son Aditya Mittal and its chief operating officer Malay Mukherjee are Indians. As are BC Aggarwal, CFO (Americas), and Sudhir Maheshwari, CF0 (Europe and rest of the world). This quartet forms Mittal’s core team.<br /><br />In all, out of the 16 corporate directors of the company, eight are Indians (or of Indian origin). Similarly, of the company’s 12 regional CEOs, six are Indians. In no other company of this scale and size is India represented so heavily in the top echelons. <br /><br />The nine-member board of the company, too, consists of five Indians. Apart from Mittal himself, son Aditya and daughter Vanisha, the board includes Malay Mukherjee and ICICI Bank chairman N Vaghul, who is a non-executive director.<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" justify=""><br />Of course, the company is not run by Indians alone. Roeland Baan, CEO, Central and Eastern Europe, who joined the company six months ago, is Dutch. Gerhard Renz, president and COO, Ispat Europe, is German. Simon Evans, the company’s top legal honcho, is British.<br /><br />The composition of the senior management of the company could change once the merger with US steel major ISG is completed. <br /><br />Rodney Mott, the CEO of ISG, has been designated the CEO of Mittal’s combined US operations, and will, thus, become a key member of Mittal’s crack team. But for the time being, Indians hold sway.</div> </div>