20 Dollars and a Dream

I'd like to ask you a little bit about your personal background as well. You're an immigrant from India, from Mumbai. How does that background as an immigrant from Mumbai, India, influence you as a leader?

In two ways. One is I think I was spoiled with diversity. We had a lot of diversity back in India. Ethnic diversity. Religious diversity. Different communities. And it taught me how to operate in a very diverse environment and how to bring out the best of each individual. So I think I was spoiled by diversity and I benefited even working at World Bank, where I had bosses, colleagues, and subordinates from 100 plus countries. So it allows you to operate, and I think that's even more important today, given the current geopolitical environment. And the second is taking risk. So when I first came to the United States in those days, you had currency controls, and I left Mumbai Airport with 20 U.S. dollars.

What year was this?

This was in 1982.

You left with 20 dollars.

I left with 20 dollars. And I was a young kid and I spent six dollars on a drink on the plane and six dollars to watch a movie. So effectively, I landed at JFK with eight dollars and I had a one-way bus ticket to Amherst, Massachusetts. And I had a foreign school student scholarship, so I knew I would get paid. But I think having that risk-taking capability and that hunger for knowledge and that drive was very, very important as an immigrant, because I didn't have a choice but to succeed. There was no safety net. And so having that and having the curiosity and trying to work with a diverse group of people has got me where I am today.

And do you think that those qualities still drive you even now in your current role as executive chairman at Nuveen?

Absolutely. I think that's one of the reasons I travel a lot. I've traveled to over 80 countries in the world trying to understand different cultures, the geopolitical environment. Having that drive for success and constantly being a little insecure. The insecurity actually... The day you become very secure and very arrogant about your past is a recipe for disaster. So having a little bit of that insecurity, no matter how successful you are, actually keeps you running and always be paranoid about the future so that you can always kind of take steps moving forward to reinvent yourself.