FICCI appoints Anish Shah as next president

Anish Shah, the managing director and CEO of the Mahindra Group, has been appointed as president-elect of industry body FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry).

Shah is currently the senior vice president of FICCI. He will succeed Subhrakant Panda as president of the apex chamber at the conclusion of the 96th Annual General Meeting to be held on December 8-9, 2023 in New Delhi.

Shah was ranked among the Best CEOs in Fortune India's Best CEO Special Issue this year. In an interview with Fortune India in September, Shah shared the best piece of advice he ever received: the only way to get control is to give up control. "I found it intriguing but puzzling. I understood it when my sons became teenagers and I had to go through that phase. This is something that has been valuable from a business standpoint as well," Shah said.

On being asked what alternate career path he would have chosen if he wasn't the CEO of Mahindra Group, Shah, who loves sports, said, "I would have chosen cricket but I don't think that path would have chosen me."

According to Shah, the most crucial element in building a high-performance organisational culture is trust in each other and working as a team. "There are often prima donnas in any team and they add their own value. But they have to work as a team," he says.

Shah believes each leader has their pluses and minuses. The Mahindra Group CEO admires different qualities in business leaders such as lessons from Mahatma Gandhi on values and integrity and why that is important in the long term. "If I were to look at excellence, that's where I'd put Steve Jobs as someone who is focussed on excellence and wasn't happy with 99% good, it had to be 100% good. If I look at the passion and ability to take risks, I look at Elon Musk in terms of what he is doing today to be a contemporary leader. Huge respect for Anand Mahindra in terms of his ability to bring out the best in people and be able to help them deliver. That's something I have learned over time and tried to imbibe," Shah says.

Prior to Mahindra Group, Shah was president and CEO of GE Capital India from 2009-14, where he led the transformation of the business, including a turnaround of its SBI Card joint venture. His career at GE spanned 14 years, during which he held several leadership positions at GE Capital's U.S. and global units. He has also led the Bank of America's U.S. Debit Products business and worked with Bain & Company in Boston and Citibank in Mumbai.

Shah holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.