CULTIVATING CULTURE AT EMERSON Written by Craig Kaminer
After working with Chuck Knight when I first came to St. Louis in 1988 and knowing his successor, Dave Farr, as a friend, I was curious to meet the man who was named to follow in their footsteps at Emerson. After trying to fit into his hectic schedule, I finally met Surendralal Karsanbhai, named CEO in February of 2021, via Zoom. The result: a reveal of his vision for Emerson, his perspective based on where and how he grew up, and his love of St. Louis. Known as Lal, he was born outside of the United States and comes from a multiethnic family. His father is Indian, his mother is Portuguese, and he didn’t learn to speak English until age 10. “I’m grateful for my upbringing -- it afforded me opportunities to live all over the world and experience new cultures as my father was transferred to different countries for work.” Lal came to the United States to attend university -- first a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and then an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. Introduced to Emerson while attending Washington University, he started working for them at age 26 in 1995, right as the company was expanding into global markets. “With my background living in Europe and Africa, I was excited to lend my skills to that aspect of the business,” he recounts. While his initial role at Emerson was in international planning, over the next few years he was in a variety of positions around the world including business development, corporate planning, and management of different Emerson businesses like regulator technologies, network power, and measurement. He was named executive vice president of the Automation Solutions division in 2018, where he was responsible for implementing strategies, technologies, and innovations to enhance operations and achieve Top Quartile performance. When asked about his enigmatic predecessors, Lal said, “David and Chuck both drove meaningful growth throughout Emerson, focusing our resources on our strategic areas of strength and creating value for our shareholders through a disciplined management approach. Emerson faced numerous challenges throughout both of their tenures, and they both navigated the company through those times in a way that sustained us and made us stronger. I’m committed to the same level of business rigor, execution, and innovation so that our stakeholders and customers continue to find the consistent value and solutions they need through partnering with Emerson.” Lal states that his priority is building the culture at Emerson. “I believe there’s a direct link between the culture of a company and the 24 slmag.net
value creation of a business. And at Emerson, our employees are truly our biggest strength. A strong culture enables us to do so many things -- from attracting and retaining talent to empowering our employees to collaborate, innovate, work in the way that’s best for them, and drive new solutions for our customers. This means development opportunities for our people, diversity efforts that will help our company reflect our world, inclusion efforts so that when people come to work at Emerson they feel like they belong, they have a place and can be themselves.” “I am taking a new direction to cultivate Emerson’s people and our culture. The way people work is changing -- and so are the expectations that top talent have for a workplace. It’s time for Emerson to follow suit and modernize our workplace so that we can attract, retain, and support diverse, high-performing talent worldwide. So, I’m particularly focused on working with my teams to create more opportunities for collaboration, flexibility, diversity, inclusion, and learning and development.” “Hopefully I’m thought of as approachable and modern, not intimidating,” he says. “It’s my job to set that tone so everyone can drive value. I’m surrounded by a tremendous group of people at Emerson. They are experts in their fields -- both at the executive level and across our entire organization. So, I rely on the team heavily. I trust the team and I empower them to execute.” “Furthermore,” he continues, “Emerson will continue to evolve its portfolio to position the business across large, profitable end markets that will remain relevant for the next 10 to 20 years. Throughout this journey, Emerson will maintain its relentless execution. This is the hallmark of the management process instituted by Chuck Knight in 1973 -- a passion for technology based on a deep understanding of its markets and customer needs, a thorough understanding and ability to pull the levers that impact costs, and a strong balance sheet to give Emerson the financial flexibility it needs.” “We’re also seeing an increased focus on ESG issues -environmental, social, and governance. This involves how a company impacts the world and its people. This is top of mind for me and throughout Emerson. Every day, we’re asking ourselves, ‘How can we evolve our business practices to operate in a more environmentally friendly way? How can we help our customers do the same? How can we help create a better world for the next generation?’” To that end, the company has developed a robust framework to lead its sustainability journey and named Michael Train as the company’s first Chief Sustainability Officer. “Emerson is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not just within its facilities but using technology to enable our customers to reach their net zero goals.” When asked about what he is most proud of to date, Lal says, “I’m very excited for all things we have ahead of us at Emerson, but my proudest moment so far is the process we went through earlier this year to establish Emerson’s diversity goal -- to double representation of women globally and U.S. minorities at the leadership level by 2030. And as part of that -- hiring Emerson’s first Chief People Officer, Elizabeth Adefioye. Throughout my career, I’ve seen how important a diverse, inclusive culture is to a company’s success, so this was a very important step forward for me personally and something I believe will put Emerson on a path to distinguish us as a company.“
