An Asian agenda

Chandran Nair says it is vital his initiatives in Asian countries have swift results, as business will not tolerate long-term ventures.
SCMP photo by Dickson Lee

By Barclay Crawford
Former executive Chandran Nair is targeting tomorrow’s business leaders to help him steer the region on to its path towards sustainable growth, writes Barclay Crawford

Chandran Nair, a wealthy engineer turned think-tank director and flag-waver for the
Asian cause, stares out the window on what a decade ago would have been a beautiful, clear autumn morning in Hong Kong.

Instead, with the city choked in a depressing haze of smog, Mr Nair shakes his head and issues a statement that would not only be ridiculed in the towers of power and halls of learning in the western world, but could well see him held up as a misguided economic heretic.

“Capitalism does not lend itself to sustainability,” he says with the passion of a man who believes, pausing slightly to gauge the reaction to this slight on the economic norm that capitalism will always equal wealth. Then comes the qualifier.

“This is not some extreme, green message at all. You just have to look at the fact that there are four to five million Chinese and Indians that are living in dire conditions and they will not be able to live like you and me. And this is the reality.”

His eyes seem to say: if you don’t believe me, take a look outside.

“There is just not enough to go around,” he says. “We live in Hong Kong, in a first-world economy of immense success, and we wonder why the air is so bad. Chinese prosperity has affected a tiny percentage of the population but that small fraction of change has started to create huge ripples throughout the world in terms of its thirst for oil, food and resources.” And maybe even Hong Kong’s air. But that’s another story.

The former manager of Hong Kong’s hockey team is sitting in a noisy Pacific Coffee outlet at the British Council to sell his vision for the Asian century, not provide solutions to the pollution outside.

Perhaps “sell” is the wrong word. The founder and former head of Asia’s most successful environmental consultancy ERM has put his faith, time and money into a unique think-tank – Global Institute for Tomorrow – and an education programme for young business leaders.

He doesn’t use the term, but it is about self-determination – Asian ideas and ideals finding a lofty place among the western discourse which largely guides perspectives on the region.

Mr Nair had been thinking about Asia for years. Then, at 50, he found himself bored with his success. But his new challenge was not climbing Mount Everest or buying a Harley-Davidson – it was “making a difference”.

His options seemed limited to “some multi-lateral agency in Geneva, London or New York” for a possible new career. Not for him, he says. An Asian to the core – born in Malaysia of Indian heritage – Hong Kong was where he had made his fortune. He wanted to stay and help this massive region formulate its own political and economic discourse, rather than be dictated or “bullied” into following a particular method of development by the west.

How Asia developed – particularly China and India – would be “critical” to the future of the planet.

“We have all been extremely naïve to assume that the model of capitalism that was perfected in the west in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s will be the model that serves the needs of the two billion in this part of the world,” he says.

Mr Nair has since thrown himself – and his reputation – into helping Asia decide for itself how such unprecedented economic development should take shape.

“This is the most heavily populated part of the world, the part of the world where the most investments are, and yet at the same time so much of the international discourse on this part of the world is being shaped by people outside. My view is it’s not their problem, it’s our problem.”

His think-tank, with the cute acronym Gift, will pursue an unbiased agenda to communicate Asian ideas to the world. And he has quickly discovered the world is crying out for some Asian navel-gazing.

Mr Nair was in New York at the Clinton Global Initiative in September, where he presented his Young Leaders Programme.

The endorsement from the former president of the US was glowing. The programme was an “excellent initiative” Bill Clinton said. “Training young leaders and changing people’s attitudes, it seems to me, is profoundly important.”

Credit Swiss First Boston then asked Mr Nair to speak on the environment at its China Investment Conference. “Our message was not as a green message, but looking at China’s environment as an untapped investment opportunity,” he says.

Trailblazing talk, but how will it work? Mr Nair admits this is the most diverse area in the world. But instead of viewing the differences as a hindrance, he believes there is enough of a common bond to forge a relatively proud way forward.

“The way the developing economies of Asia, particularly China and India, develop will play a great role in forming what the world looks like,” Mr Nair says.

“The model of creating prosperity and wealth will be one that we define and we will be brave enough to go and find, rather than just copy other models because we are told that is the model that works.”

So what he calls the American “extreme capitalism” model of economic reform is out.
Rather, he hopes what he calls the “commonalities” of the region - the different view of democratic principles, and of business and society - can work in Asia’s favour.

The common good often overrides the good of the individual. Respect for elders is also something that should be seen as a benefit and a strength. But it’s not all about strengths, and Mr Nair hopes his think-tank can be as open to criticism as it is to praise on issues that often hold back development: the chip on the shoulder about colonial history; and the sometimes overwhelming focus on education which distorts the way Asian children learn, with its focus on facts and figures rather than lateral thinking.

“These are issues that should not be swept under the carpet, but should be talked about openly by us, rather than relying on the global community,” he says.

The Young Leaders Programme is a crucial part of the think-tank and a way of developing a healthy debate in Asia about sustainable and prosperous development. Mr Nair has always been concerned by the narrow, specialised education business leaders receive.

“It really is business that can make a difference,” he says.

“But if we don’t have youngsters with a better perspective of the increasingly complex world we live in, then I think the chances of sharing wealth, development and prosperity are going to be few and far between.”

The programme is ambitious and far-sighted, aiming to give talented young executives a broader view of the world around them, exposing what the future is likely to hold, and hopefully changing their attitudes.

Helping this process will be a small team of “CEO mentors”.

“The world is filled with 60-year-olds full of experience who don’t know where to go,” he says. “I’m giving them the chance.” Only six professionals make up Mr Nair’s team. He wants more – but not the “flaky, unprofessional people who are airy fairy” –and he is prepared to pay them market rates.

The group of executives will be asked to pick a project with an underprivileged community and attempt to unlock a profit.

“The biggest market in the world in the future is going to be the people who don’t have,” he says.

“Herein lies a great opportunity because the poor are wasteful, because they don’t have access to technology or ideas.”

It sounds wishy-washy on the surface, but the Gift has already had 20 big-name corporates sign on to the programme.

“It’s vital we get early results and show business this works, because business is not interested in long-term engagement with no result,” he says.

Mr Nair could talk of vision and the future until the sky over Hong Kong is clear again.

There is the plan to bring a group of young US-educated Palestinian executives to the city to meet business leaders and forge relationships that could maybe help stabilise the fraught state.

“In the end, I want to have fun, because otherwise you get this attitude that the world is just a terrible place,” he says.