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I was there at the dawn of a new era of the going concern. There were number of memorable events of the magnitude, but the bank was not always fighting fires. Mr. Bill Gates came to see our banking system which was running on Windows. Mr. Michael Dell visited to see our data center and back office floors as the entire infrastructure is running on Dell computers. Madam Ho-Ching whose name always shows up in Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful Women came to see the president and CIO. When you do your best in your chosen field, the world comes to find you whenever you are. There are number of living example of this law, but for me, the Indian CIO was it.

When I bumped into Mr. Tata of Tata Group in the elevator hall, I was totally unprepared and all I could do was to bow down like any secretary would do. At the very moment, I got the snapshot image of his bushy eyebrow and piercing eyes. Back then, I did not know what I stumbled upon, but I know now. When an extraordinary people get together and their energy field or aura or both are in sync, you just know it. You might not know what it is. You might not put down in words to describe that. Still you feel it. If you eyes meet, even for a fraction of a second, even if you could not afford to say something nice or smile, you receive a certain energy or a seed of something, like a message from higher place.

What the Indian CIO had done in front of my eyes was continuously rubbing shoulders with the very smart and prominent people across industries, all over the world. My Japanese boss started off as a junior member of his inner circle. In front of my eyes for 10 years, he dealt with every single person under his command every day to bring the number of challenging projects forward simultaneously. Along the way, he proved himself to every operator, every manager, every division head and every competition.