Cultivating Culture to Create a Better World

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 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.”

Photo by Chris Malacarne

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.“

According to Lal, Emerson is proud to be part of St. Louis’s strong business community. “As a leader of a St. Louis-based company, I’m dedicated to continuing the work Emerson has been driving for years to positively impact the places where we live and work -- especially in our hometown of St. Louis. We feel an immense responsibility to do our part to strengthen our communities and be a good corporate citizen. This means not only taking care of the employees we have in St. Louis but also taking care of our neighbors -- and we do that through volunteering, corporate giving, and several programs in the areas of health and human services, education, culture and arts, and civic needs.”

In terms of St. Louis and what he wishes we can fix, he said, “I would start with education. There’s so much we can do to address the education inequalities across the St. Louis region and surrounding areas. The fact is that so much of the foundation of a child’s future life is laid in the early elementary years -- kindergarten through sixth grade. If I could wave a magic wand, I’d make education more accessible and equitable. I think that would help our city greatly. I believe individuals and businesses can play a big role in improving the education ecosystem -- developing future leaders and affecting the outcome of our communities. I’m proud that Emerson has a strong legacy of investing in education, particularly in the St. Louis region, and I plan to continue growing this legacy.”

“As you know, the company was founded here in the 1890s. From the first electric motor from a very small manufacturing company all the way to today, the roots of the business have been in St. Louis. We employ approximately 1,000 people in St. Louis, most of whom are located on our campus in Ferguson. In terms of the abilities and the pool of talent that we need for the company -- we believe that St. Louis can compete for that talent primarily because of the quality of life here. And I can tell you, having grown up and traveled all over the world, and having lived all over the world while at Emerson, the quality of life in this city is very high. My wife and I are very excited about raising our kids here,” he adds. “From an education, healthcare and cultural perspective, we find St. Louis very attractive. I think we and others can be happy and successful here in St. Louis.”

While spending much of his time at Emerson, “My favorite thing to do is spend time with my six-year-old twins and my wonderful wife, Vija,” he says. “When I have free time, I love to run. It’s something I fell in love with again in my mid-to-late 30s when I wanted to get back in shape. If I can squeeze in an hour or so each day -- on the treadmill or outside -- it’s a good way for me to stay balanced both physically and mentally.”

On a local level, Lal stays home a lot. “Believe it or not, with two six-year-olds running around our house, we don’t go out to restaurants much! But on the rare occasion when we have, one of my recent favorite spots has been iNDO in Tower Grove.”

“Every day’s a little bit different, depending on what’s going on with our employees, or customers, or investors. But, typically I get up pretty early in the morning, around 5:30 or 6 a.m. If I have the energy, I go for my run. If not, I just get a cup of coffee and then get to the office. I try to run several miles per week so if I don’t run in the morning, I squeeze it in at lunch or rarely, after work. Obviously, 2021 has been different from a traveling perspective. I think in aggregate, I might’ve spent about 30 days out of St. Louis since I’ve been CEO, but that’s probably not uncommon since the Delta variant of COVID.”

“I look at my calendar the week ahead and we manage it in that fashion. It’s made up of different sets of meetings. Some of them are virtual, some are calls, some are in-person. It just really depends. I do my best to get home for dinner. With young kids that is a treat. I hear about their day and then get them to what we call the ‘bewitching hour’ -- when we try to get them upstairs into the bath, and the reading, and all that before bed. I enjoy that.”

“Once they’re in bed, around 8 or 8:15 p.m., I go back and look at my emails a couple of more times, catch up on a little reading, and spend time with my wife. So that’s kind of how the week goes. On the weekends, it depends. Sometimes I am here at the office on Saturdays and even Sundays. And then of course, there’s the travel, which is beginning to pick up again.

“With all the jobs that I’ve had at Emerson, every day is different. There isn’t a routine. It’s just addressing the issues that come up. We have a management process as well, so that brings some degree of consistency day-to-day, but generally speaking, you’ve got to be somewhat flexible to deal with different things.”

Although he has traveled the world for business, Lal said he’d love to see the Great Wall of China some day. “I’ve been to China more than 20 times but have never made it to the Great Wall. I’d also love to see Mount Everest. I don’t want to climb the whole mountain! But hiking up to the Everest base camp would be amazing.”

When I asked him what most people don’t know about him, he said, “Two things: I love LP vinyl records! We have a record player at home and really enjoy listening to old records. And, I love to cook, especially my mother’s Portuguese recipes.”

“When I became CEO of Emerson, my roommate from the University of Michigan, who lives in London, sent me a gift -- four LP records of bands we used to listen to in college, which was fun. And by chance, we had a turntable. We dusted it off, figured out how to connect it to our speakers, and listened to the music. That was just pure coincidence. The kids said, ‘what’s that?’ and I told them the music sounds a lot better this way. Since then, I’ve gone to Vintage Vinyl in The Loop a couple of times and got a few more LPs.”

I asked Lal if he could have only one LP, which would it be? His answer, “The one LP I need is ‘Meat is Murder’ by the English rock band the Smiths. To me as a teenager and as a young man, that one LP was probably the most influential in my young life -- even though it is very depressing!”

“Now, we listen to just about everything at home -- music from different countries and in different languages. There’s always music playing -- our children also sing in the St. Louis Children’s Choir. Obviously, we speak Portuguese and Latvian (Vija is Latvian) at home as well. Everything you can imagine is played over our speakers.”