'For me success means higher market capitalisation,' says HDFC's Keki Mistry

By Santosh Nair

Keki Mistry, vice chairman and CEO at Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) is a trained boxer and at the same time fond of Hindi music. This is perhaps the reason he has completed 30 years at the organisation rising through the ranks. The market cap of HDFC is just under Rs 1,00,000 crore. About 75 percent of that is owned by foreign institutional investors. Hence, travel has always been a part of his career.

In an interview with Santosh Nair, editor, Moneycontrol.com Mistry looks back at his career. Excerpts from the interview:

Q: You have worked your way up the ranks in HDFC, how has the journey so far been?

More from Business

Hyundai India’s Rs 27,870 crore IPO oversubscribed by 2.28X, largely driven by institutional investors How Indian fintech startups are driving Malaysia’s UPI-like digital payments revolution

A: Very good….. I started in October of 1981, so it is almost 30 years now. I was with Deutsche for a couple of years, not even a couple of years, year and half or so and then I finished my CA. At that time HDFC was looking for someone in the finance department, so I joined as assistant manager, accounts. I remember my first salary was Rs 2620. In 1985, I became Manager. Then in 1989, I became General Manager, in 1993, I became Executive Director and from 1993 till 2011, I have been on the board, so its 18 years on the board.

Q: Is leadership something that came naturally to you or did you pick it up over the years?

A: I don’t think you can pick up anything; these things come naturally to you. Obviously there are a few things that you can pick up but they have to come naturally to you. So I think leadership is really more about letting people be what they are, hearing suggestions helping them, guiding them but at the end of the day leaving them to do the things the way they would probably do it best, after all they are all professionals.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Tata Harrier EV vs Mahindra XEV 9e: Design and road presence compared

As Trump weaponises tariff, Fed sees a bigger worry: Not jobs, but rising prices in America

Q: What’s your vision for HDFC say 10 years from now?

[caption id=“attachment_54350” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Keki Mistry. Screengrab/moneycontrol.com”]  [/caption]

A: We have as I said articulated very clearly every year what we want to achieve. There are certain basic parameters that we want to achieve and it’s a vision that keeps changing all the time. In a sense the broad parameters are the same but over a period of time things work out, markets change, the external environment changes, you need to adapt to that. I would say HDFC has become a financial conglomerate, we will continue to be a large financial conglomerate. We could look at one or two additional lines of businesses. Ten years from now we would probably have a listed life insurance company, a listed general insurance company. Presumably there will be a holding company structure. There was in fact a report on a working group report on holding companies, so HDFC would continue to be where it is, as the leader in the financial services business, but with probably one or two businesses below it and with several listed companies. The other vision is much higher market cap. There are various ways you can measure success, but to me success is market capitalization. So if your market capitalization increases then effectively it takes into account everything else. The market recognizes all the good and all the bad that you do and that gets reflected in market cap.

Q: Which are your favourite management quotes?

A: Management quotes I do not know, but if you ask me quotes I would say there is one which I liked a lot which is the Shakespeare quote, which says that he “Who steals my purse steals trash; ’ It was mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.” So I like that. And the other one that I liked was one — is when he says that The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Which means once something is done is done and you can do nothing to erase something that has happened in the past - you can repair it but you can’t erase it.

Q: The top job comes with its fair share of stress, how do you deal with it?

A: That’s what I said that there is sometimes a lot of stress. So you have to learn to get used to that stress and you have to learn also not to carry that stress when you go to sleep and to forget about it once you get up, it’s not easy, it’s frankly not easy, it’s really not easy. Its become more and more difficult in the last 5 years or so because now you have quarterly results and quarterly numbers, which you have to report and we have so many analysts and so many shareholders who are always at you and there are guys like you in the media who will monitor accounts and say that your profit should be so much and your growth should be so much. So it’s probably a lot more stressful today than it may have been 20 years ago. But you have to learn to cope with it.

To answer that question little differently, I think you have to guide people, you should know where you stand or where the company stands and you should have the confidence to guide people right through the period, to tell them when there is a problem, to tell the world that there is a problem if there is a problem and not to sort of keep it within you and then try and cover up because it doesn’t work and that creates much more stress. So if there is a problem, tell the world, for example, theoretically you feel that the growth is slowing down you tell the world that yes, there are difficult times, growth is slowing down. So the expectations go down and automatically your stress goes down.

Here is the video of the full interview..

Continues on the next page..

Q: The whole thing about work-life balance, are you able to effectively achieve that?

A: Today if you ask me honestly perhaps a little better than what I could have done 10 years ago and 10 years ago there was always that search to do something new, something different. So personal life, really, truly almost never existed. I used to be very fond of reading, extremely fond of reading when I was in school and when I was in college, and writing, I used to love writing. But in the last 30 years, I can’t recall even one book or two books that I have read. Probably two or three books that is ..the fiction type, the non-fiction type, I do tend to read. Writing, I have not done any writing in the last 30 years, but when I was in college, when I was doing my CA, I used to be very fond of writing.

Q: Tell us something about your family and friends?

A: Family, my father died when I was in college, my mother died after I joined HDFC, she died in 2000. She died actually 11 years ago and I was the only son, no brother, no sister, I have cousins, but all my cousins are out of India, there is no one in India. Someone is in the US, someone is in Canada, someone somewhere else. So family for me today is my wife and my daughter, my daughter is also abroad. She is studying in the US, she is doing under graduation. She will comeback now hopefully in December, but at the moment she is abroad. So family for me is yes, me, my wife and my daughter. My mother helped me a lot through my career, through my early days and possibly the only regret I have in life is that in the last 2 years or 3 years when she was sort of - when she had health problem - I did not spend the amount of time that I would have liked with her. I was so engrossed with work in those days, I used to usually leave office around 8:30-9:00, by the time you got home it was 9:30 - 10:00, she would be going to sleep, early morning I would leave again. So we didn’t spend quality time as much as I would have liked. Though I did make it a point to make up for it on Sundays; she used to stay with us and my wife has always been extremely supportive for whatever I have done, extremely supportive. So she has never said that you come home early or you do this or do that, very supportive.

Q: What’s your idea for perfect Sunday? What do you do?

[caption id=“attachment_54351” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Mistry’s idea of a perfect Sunday is to just relax, do very little things. Screengrab/moneycontrol.com”]  [/caption]

A: Relax, really my idea of a perfect Sunday is to just relax, do very little things. Just be at home, spend some time maybe watching television, spend sometime making friends and in the evening probably have a drink, watch a cricket match if a match is going on or have a few friends home or go out for cricket. I don’t watch movies. Again when I was in school and college and maybe even early days in HDFC, I used to love watching movies. But I don’t think I have watched a movie in the last 12 months.

Q: You mentioned that you like reading; any books that have left a lasting impression on you?

A: Two or three, I would say one was a book called Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, that left really a lasting impression. Another book, which was a nonfiction book called Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? And that was by an author called Reverend John Powell and he started off his book saying that I am the only thing I have in this world. My only possession in this universe is I being myself and if I tell you who I am you will not accept me and if you don’t accept me, I am nothing else to offer. So that is why I play games, I try to be different from what I am and I try to project an image that you want to see me and what I really is. So I thought it was a very good book.

Q: Someday when you retire what kind of a person would you like to be remembered by your colleagues as?

A: Someone who was approachable, simple. I have a very high focus on integrity. I think integrity at the end of the day is most important thing. Integrity is not just picking up a wallet that you see lying on the road (and returning it). Integrity goes a lot beyond that, so integrity, lack of politics and just being straight and not having a private agenda when you go and meet and talk to people.

Q: What would you like society to remember you as?

A: The same.