"Third Person No Longer..."
- By Professor Prabhu Guptara
- Published 12/1/2008
Professor Prabhu Guptara
Professor Prabhu Guptara is Executive Director, Organisational Development, Wolfsberg (a subsidiary of UBS - one of the largest banks in the world). He is also Freeman of the City of London and of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, and Chartered Fellow of the of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; he is also Fellow: of the Institute of Directors, of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Commerce and Manufactures; and he continues to supervise PhD research at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) as well as to be Visiting Professor at various Universities and Business Schools around the world.
Earlier roles include: a Governor of the Polytechnic of Central London, Member of the Council of the British Institute of Management, of the International Federation of Training & Development Organisations (IFTDO), of the Association for Management Education and Development (UK), of the South East Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry.
Judge, 1988 National Training Awards, 1980 Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1990 & 1991 Deo Gloria Prize for Fiction; Chair of the Panel of Judges, Deo Gloria Prize 1992 & 1993.
Experience with an enormous range of organisations including: Akzo Nobel (Netherlands), the Associated Banks Institute (Germany), Barclays Bank (UK), British Petroleum (UK), the Council of Europe, Cultor (Finland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Groupe Bull (France), Federation of Finnish Engineers (Finland), the International Management Association of Japan, Kemira (Finland), Kraft Jakob Suchard (Switzerland), Leadership Academy (Finland), Nokia Telecommunications (Finland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark), Sedgwick International Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers (UK), Singapore Institute of Management, Sonatrach (Algeria), Sun Alliance (UK), UNCTAD, Valeo (France), and so on.
Organiser, chair and lecturer by invitation for numerous international conferences, he has contributed widely to radio and television in the UK and other countries (The Money Program, Any Questions) and has written for Financial Times (London, UK), The Guardian, The Times and other publications; articles, for example, in The Gower Handbook of Management, The Gower Handbook of Quality, and the International Encyclopedia of Business & Management (Routledge).
A CD-ROM has been issued of his lecture at the Professorenforum, University of Zurich, titled "Making the World Better - Why it does NOT happen...and what TO DO about it"
Further information available from rbadertscher@coba.ch
His best-known research publication is "Top Executives in the Global 100 Companies and their IT-Competence" (ADVANCE: Management Training Ltd., UK, and Wolfsberg Executive Development Centre, Switzerland, 1998); and he is included in Debrett's People of Today and in Who's Who in the World. Professor Prabhu Guptara lives in Switzerland.
My niece shared with me this piece written by a friend of a friend, Srinivasa Addepalli ("Srini"), and he has kindly given me permission to post it here. Many thanks, Srini!:
Third Person No Longer...
The veil has been shattered. We have watched terror attacks on TV, read analyses on websites and discussed 911, 267, London and Madrid over coffee. Bad things were happening out there and we were shocked, sorry and commisserating. But it was always out there and them that got affected. It was always terror in third person.
Last night changed it. The attacks were at locations that were close to our hearts. At locations that were painfully very familiar to us. Locations we might have been at last night.
The rooms, restaurants and banquet halls of the Taj and Oberoi were our haunts. We smiled cynically at the metal detectors and security checks at the entrances. What an irritant, we thought. We felt we wereout of reach, safe and above terror. Last night changed it.
I hope it stays changed. I hope we don't "bounce back" as the journalists put it. I hope we don't go back to thinking we are impervious. It is our callousness, this bouncing back, that strengthens our enemies. It is our indifference that prevents us from demanding tough action.
Some of our colleagues, some of our fellow citizens, and some of our guests have borne the brunt of what happened last night. It might have been you and me. This is not drama in third person any longer.
I wish there were some easy solutions to this, a 'framework' that we could apply, some consultants we could call in. But there aren't. Some momentous changes will be required in our country and society if we are to make life more secure for us and our children. Each of us will
have to play a part in this change.
This morning, as we strive to maintain calm and pray for those affected, let's not forget that this is terror in first person. Please don't bounce back tomorrow morning.
Srini
Prabhu Guptara