 "Michael Bloomberg")
A breakfast meeting with Michael Bloomberg can be quite an experience - in the run-up to the meeting, you are first bombarded with emails giving minute details of his India engagements (I now know that though he is visiting the country after 14 years, it is his first overseas destination of the year) and there are umpteen number of reiterations that the interaction shouldn't exceed half an hour because of his extraordinarily busy schedule following which he would take the midnight flight back home.
The fuss continues when I reach the Taj Mahal Palace hotel lobby in Mumbai. One of his aides is waiting anxiously for a message from her colleague on when we can proceed to the floor where Bloomberg is waiting. And as the elevator reaches the destination, I am "handed over" to another associate who would, I am told, take care of this part of the proceedings.
The excitement all around is perhaps inevitable: The world's 13th richest man and a three-term Mayor of New York city, wears many hats. Apart from being the founder of his namesake company, which is a global media giant with presence in 73 countries, he is into mega philanthropy, giving away $3.3 billion so far for work in public health, education, environment etc. He has now taken on another role - United Nations' Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change - the reason why he is on a two-day visit to India.
The room where I am ushered in has at least a dozen of his senior employees who have come from all parts of the globe. As I start wondering whether it's really the ideal setting for a 'Breakfast with BS', the noise dies down as Bloomberg begins to speak. Certain corporate cultures seem to be universal - when the boss speaks, everyone listens.
Bloomberg obviously doesn't agree with that theory, which explains the absence of physical partitions and job titles in his offices. After his surprise comeback to the media company after 12 years, he still sits among colleagues on the fifth floor of Bloomberg LP's offices on Lexington Avenue. "Team spirit develops if you can create an atmosphere where your colleagues can pick up candies from your table without asking. Hierarchy shouldn't matter beyond a point. In any case, I am past. They are the future," Bloomberg says pointing at his two young colleagues seated at the same table.
So why did he return to Bloomberg, which he founded in 1981, despite promising to dedicate his life to philanthropy? The answer is short: "Because I liked it that way". Quite. After all, he has an 80 per cent stake in the company.
Bloomberg, however, makes it clear that his two daughters, Emma and Georgina, will have nothing to do with the running of either Bloomberg Philanthropies or Bloomberg LP, which he founded in 1981 as a small start-up in a one room office. While Emma is working for non-profit organisations, Georgina is a professional athlete. Many in Indian family-owned businesses would do well to learn this separation of ownership and management, I say, but the response from Bloomberg, who has degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard Business School, is suitably diplomatic: "To each his own".
Also, as Modi is showing, confronting climate change goes hand-in-hand with smart economic growth. Bloomberg gives examples of New York under his mayorship when the city reduced its carbon footprint by 19 per cent in just six years, increased life expectancy by three years, and created new jobs. "What better return on investment can one ask for?" he asks, adding in America, coal kills about 13,000 people a year and the number in India must be many times that.
In any case, he finds the debate about economic growth versus environment issues meaningless. "How do you value two more years of life for 14 million people? Can you promote tourism where you see people wearing masks and coughing around? If you don't focus on the environmental side, you can't fix the economic side," Bloomberg says with a lot of passion.
Despite his punishing schedule in Delhi, the vocal supporter of efficient and sustainable public transportation attempted to "ride" his talk by opting for a CNG auto rickshaw drive in a three-piece suit. It's a different matter that true to the 'picture-or-it-didn't-happen' philosophy, he made sure that almost the entire ride is posted on social media.
He asks for a strong coffee and says he is also hugely encouraged by the prime minister's ambitious goal of boosting the share of solar power in India's energy mix from less than one per cent to more than 10 per cent by 2022 and distribute solar panels to every "off the grid" household. Bloomberg doesn't understand the local politics of India but hopes these initiatives get off the shelves for the sake of the country's clean energy future. Indian politicians may agree or disagree, but all of them would surely marvel at this feat of his: In 2001, Bloomberg, a lifelong member of the Democratic Party, decided to run for mayor as a member of the Republican Party ticket.
The steward comes back with freshly toasted breads and Bloomberg picks one after initial hesitation. I ask him about the rumours of him wanting to buy The New York Times, but Bloomberg jokes that "he buys several newspapers every day". Jokes apart, it's clear that the media empire is something where his post-mayoral ambitions lie. He is personally fond of radio, but one of his immediate priority seems to be to build synergy in the organisation which has seen an audacious growth since the time he left. Bloomberg (the terminal business accounts for more than 80 per cent of the over $9 billion profits) interfaces with 1,000 different commodity and stock exchanges.
When he left to serve as Mayor in 2002, his company had one news organisation. When he returned, it had 10, including separate teams for the news wire, television, radio, the web, the magazines and others. The task would be to unify them to have more coordination.
His goal clearly is to become the leading global business-media company across all platforms and geographies and extending the company's reach beyond its core group of financial-industry professionals to a more general, global business audience. That explains the repackaging of websites.
And he has big plans to play the India game. Bloomberg says as the owner of a company that connects businesses and banks to capital markets, he is very bullish on growth in India and has ambitious plans for the company which has 162 employees in the country. "The scale of India is such that you have to end up being a very big market. I want to do things that nobody else is doing," Bloomberg says.
His colleagues signal it's time for his next meeting and Bloomberg says the only legacy he would like to leave behind are "my daughters". For once, the man, who is known for his aggressive style that helped him build a mega empire after being fired from Salomon Brothers in 1981, smiles softly.
