Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Beyonce… Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon? Unlikely as that last name may sound on this list, Tandon shares the marquee with these music superstars as a nominee for the 2011 Grammy Awards. Her presence in the group is unusual, not just because it’s rare for Indian names to make it to the list of Grammy nominees, but also because it’s rarer still for a business executive.
But the New York-based financial advisor is a pretty unusual businesswoman. Tendon is actually familiar with the music of her fellow nominees and points out that Brazilian musician Sergio Mendes is someone she has listened to for years. Next month, Tandon travels to Los Angeles to find out whether she wins a Grammy in the Contemporary World Music Album category.
Tandon is nominated for Om Namo Narayanaya: Soul Call, only the second album in her fairly recent avatar as a recording artiste. When asked if she was surprised to be nominated for such an early work when professional musicians can toil for years before making the cut, she suggests the answer is to be found in the same spiritual realm that her music inhabits.
“I was simply blown away by the nomination,” she says, “I am awestruck… and so full of gratitude that an extraordinary community of musicians took the time to listen to an unknown like me, to appreciate the CD and then to vote for me.”
Among her business colleagues and clients, a common reaction was “shock”. Tandon recalls a message she received from a CEO: “I kind of thought you were interested in singing, but I didn’t know you could SING!” As for her younger sister, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Chandrika says she liked the album and was happy about the nomination, but added, “My music is really my own passion. It’s not like my family sits down and listens to me singing.”
She herself inhabits the worlds of finance and music with equal ease. The Chennai native is chairman of Tandon Capital Associates, a financial advisory firm founded in 1992. During her early years at global business consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and then at her own company, Tandon has routinely advised chief executives and corporate boards of mega financial institutions around the world on operational restructuring and strategy. With Soul Call, her advice takes the form of what she calls “a powerful healing mantra that works to cleanse the eight vital centres of the body”.
For years, Tandon led a high-powered jet-setting lifestyle, actually commuting to countries like Brazil and Australia for a few days each week from New York to oversee projects.
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That began to change about nine years ago, when she asked herself if her business success had been matched by equal success in finding her “life’s purpose”. It was a sort of epiphany when she realised that her happiest moments were tied to music. Pursuing her passion for composing and recording devotional music came easier for someone who already had a foundation in Hindustani music.
Tandon is careful to emphasise that her involvement with music has not come at the cost of her day job. On the day she met me at her elegant residence on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, overlooking the East River, she had started her day with a 6 am meeting. Apart from her financial firm, she is also “tangentially involved” with husband Ranjan Tandon’s hedge fund. But she is now more selective about her work, often picking projects and clients due to an acquaintance with a CEO or her personal interests.
Even her pursuit of music created another business opportunity – for Soul Call, Tandon created her own music label. “Once you give the record to somebody else – the industry is so crazy,” she declares with a chuckle, “So, now I’ve learnt all about music labels… I’m the owner of a label. Business just grows in different ways.”
Other responsibilities – as executive-in-residence at NYU Stern School of Business and on the dean’s council at NYU Wagner School of Public Service; and at Yale University on the president’s council on international activities – get equal attention. She also finds time for non-profit or philanthropic organisations such as American India Foundation, Pratham USA, Indo-American Arts Council and the Hindu Community Outreach Foundation, not to mention her own Krishnamurthy Tandon Foundation through which she supports groups working on women’s empowerment, education and spirituality. And every Sunday, she goes across to the neighbouring borough of Queens to work with the Hindu Community Choir that she formed two years ago.
As someone with business and personal interests in India, but also an observer from afar, Tandon is dismayed at India’s corruption and bureaucracy holding back the country’s potential. “We have an imperative to fix this,” she says.
But she is more upbeat about the country’s business community, and its approach to social service. “Because of the Indian ethos, because so much of India is steeped in the Bhagvad Gita, I think there’s much more of that awareness in India than there would be in most countries,” she explains.
Indian CEOs get high marks: “In general, many of the CEOs have much broader visions of themselves and their role… One of the most striking things about Indian CEOs is that they all really understand that without the low and the middle of the country coming up, their institutions can’t do well. They are very aware of this and a lot of them spend more emotional time on this topic than almost any other country’s CEOs I have worked with.”
Whether or not it wins a Grammy, Soul Call will have a direct impact in India – Tandon is giving away copies of the album to various grassroots organisations in India that can then sell the CDs at an affordable price to raise funds for their work. And whether or not she wins a Grammy, Tandon has had her fill of awards; among the honours she has won is the Walter Nichols award from NYU Stern for representing the highest ideals of business, service and integrity, whose previous recipients include Alan Greenspan and Jack Welch.
Even before Soul Call was nominated for a Grammy, Tandon had begun work on her third album of devotional music; that is set for release a few weeks after this year’s Grammy Awards.