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The pandemic has reset priorities for many, and unmasked the deep unhappiness that a huge number of people have with their jobs and workplace. The “Great Resignation” and the “Great Reshuffle” are not just trending hashtags – rather they are a harsh reality in many cases, where companies have seen huge exodus of talent. This, coupled with remote work becoming mainstream, has unleashed the demand for high quality leaders who can lead in such turbulent times. Finding such leaders is often harder than even raising money or getting customers these days! But, find you must, if you want to scale and grab the tremendous opportunities that the current market presents.

2020 has been a tumultuous year so far. We are facing a health crisis of historic proportions and there is a lot of uncertainty about what the post-pandemic world will look like. Even as we attempt to figure this out, we have protests and unrest roiling the entire country. The fallouts are surely going to be long-term, changing how technology platforms participate in political discourse, what kind of companies talented folks choose to work for, and where/how they will live and work. Our entire lifestyle, including our value system, is up for re-evaluation. What will the rest of the 20’s decade look like?

When the hotSilicon Valley payments startup Stripe announced that its fifth engineering hub would be remote, it was widely cheered by the developercommunities across the world as it sprinkled holy water on what has alreadybecome inevitable. After all, doesn’thiring the best 100 engineers worldwide make much more sense than housing theavailable 100 under one roof? Just look around you – coffee shops, co-workingspaces, shared offices and travel hubs like airports and stations – are allfull of people doing their work. And its high time that we figure out how tocater to a new generation of workers and workstyles, as Stripe has attemptedto.

I see it every day in my profession as an executive recruiter. There is a near desperate demand for a certain set of people – ML Scientist, Product folks who know how to apply and monetize data, Business leaders who have built new age businesses leveraging AI/ML/IOT. Compensation has gone through the roof, acqui-hires are the rage and companies are trying their best to hold on to these profiles. There is a tremendous shift happening almost exactly like it happened when businesses started moving on-line – remember the time web developers were hotshot stars? Start-ups and enterprises are racing ahead at lightning speed to apply artificial intelligence to all workflows via bots and learning platforms. What will happen once they achieve their goals? Would doctors, lawyers, nurses, security staff and many others lose their jobs? From being the most sought after will they become persona non grata? A question that is haunting everybody who is watching the new technology unfold and develop by leaps and bounds! But dig a bit deeper into the past and you are awash with a déjà vu feeling.

Change, as we love to say, is the only constant in today’s world. Young or old, big or small, the rapidly blowing winds of change demand that you constantly steer and correct your course to stay ahead of the curve. This requires leadership of a specific kind at the helm; somebody who has a clear vision for where the organization needs to go, and knows how to lead from the front to get there. The accelerated change paradigm also presents enormous opportunities for growth. Look at how Amazon created a complete line of enterprise business with AWS, and a highly profitable one at that, in a matter of a few years. Of course, this kind of transformation can only happen with the right leader at the helm. Think Indra Nooyi. Jeff Bezos. Satya Nadella – these individuals are easily among the most successful business leaders in the world today. On the flip-side of the coin, we have Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer as the latest poster child for failed leadership.

We feel a more pronounced need to be guided by these leaders, today more than ever before, because we live in such rapidly changing times. Technology and social breakthroughs ensure that we are constantly in the midst of unprecedented changes, so much so, that it is something that most of us have internalized and accepted. Companies too are under ongoing pressure to maintain a state that constantly requires decisive action, innovative ideas and near flawless execution. This tremendously impacts hiring at the senior leadership level. Surely, one cannot be in the middle of a swirling vortex and expect to just coast along. We need to rethink the kind of people we need, who would help us pull through these radically changing times and come out on top. Who are these leaders and how and where do we find them?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in recent times, you must be well aware of the waves of disruption sweeping through a post-pandemic world. Covid-19 literally demanded us to change our lives overnight, forcing millions across the world to stay at home for months at a stretch while altering our usual ways of life and work. What followed was a huge wave of pandemic-driven technology development and innovation at a pace that was unprecedented. Be it the shift to remote work via video conferencing, telehealth, online education, a surge in e-commerce and accelerated digital transformation, robotic delivery services or contactless payments - everything was now at our fingertips. The new crop of AI powered chatbots have further ignited a new race to develop technology that is upending the economies of the internet as we know it. The AI arms race among the tech giants like Google and Microsoft are well under way with many smaller AI companies nipping their heels in the hope of becoming the next industry giants. AI is likely to do what the last decade disruptors like Uber did to the taxi industry and Airbnb to the hotel business. These are exciting times indeed!