Rolly - There has been very major munificence directed at the community at large : case in point, the Menezes Centre building on the IIT campus in Bombay, and the prestigious Asia Society on Park Avenue on whose board sit the likes of the Rockefellers and names from finance and government. I have always remained parochial, but for some, decades of removal can alter feelings and allegiances, as this case appears to demonstrate. A case can be made for 'belonging' to a bigger world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________ From: Roland Francis <[email protected]> To: "'Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!'" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2012 10:09 PM Subject: [Goanet] Ivan Menezes - COO of Diageo plc Further to my post in 2009 about Ivan Menezes when he was President of Diageo's North American operations, in March 2012 he received another promotion, this time as corporate COO (Chief Operating Officer) which is the number two position in the multinational. When Paul Walsh the CEO leaves as planned in 2014, Ivan is tipped to be his successor. Diageo is one of two top global liquor companies, the other being Ricard Pernod. Between the two of them they own all the major spirit brands you and I are familiar with. Ivan is the younger brother of Victor Menezes formerly number two in CitiGroup who resigned when he was passed over by the board to succeed Sandy Weil for the CEO position. He was head of the investment banking arm of CitiGroup. Ivan like Victor is an alumni of St. Stephen's College in Delhi where he obtained a BA in economics while his elder brother got his BTech from an IIT. Ivan went on to get his MBA from the IIM in Ahmedabad followed by Masters and Management degrees in US Business Schools. He is in the news again as under his tutelage, Diageo has bought a controlling stake in Vijay Mallya's United Breweries for more than a few billion thus saving Mallya's skin with his other losses, primarily his airlines misadventure. As an aside, Mallya has dropped his notorious lifestyle of lavish parties and beautiful women by his side ever since he has had to make repeated trips to meet his Indian bankers for repeated injection of funds for his airline. In a YouTube snip in St Croix Ivan has emphasized Diageo's corporate responsibility to every community in which it operates. I am not aware of any personal responsibility that either Victor or Ivan have exercised towards the Goan community from which they come. If any reader is aware of such being discharged even in a small way, I would be glad to learn of it. To my mind exceedingly rich Goans have always forgotten their roots. Roland. Toronto. I wrote the following on Goanet in March 2009: As a Goan I have to be proud of Ivan Menezes as I was of Victor Menezes. Diageo and Citibank are no piddling corporations. But I must say that Ivan Menezes needs to expand his vocabulary ever so slightly. Every answer to the questioner need not have started with "In this environment". Surely there are adequate substitutions like: Under these conditions In this economic climate Given the current circumstances With these corporate compulsions etc Of course granted that Ivan Menezes is not expected to be a TV star, he could still have answered the Bloomberg interviewer with more transparency and plain-vanilla facts that could have worked to his advantage, rather than the easier and more common corporate-speak he employed.
