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“How about meeting for an ‘exit’ interview,” we message 68-year-old B Santhanam, with a smiley. “Yes, we can schedule it on April 1; that is an appropriate day,” he replies, with a wink emoji! Given that he is retiring after a 45-year career with the French float glass maker and construction products major Saint-Gobain, a conversation with Santhanam on the broad sweep of his long career — taking over as MD at 39 and setting up a float glass plant from scratch, to seeing it emerge as the largest player in the country — is engrossing.
During an over two-hour conversation, Santhanam, an IIT-Madras engineer and IIM-Ahmedabad postgraduate, recalls how the business and brand was built, from it being called “Santh Gobind” up north in its early days, to iconic ad campaigns that have made Saint-Gobain near synonymous with float glass in India. Now that he’s retiring, “I’m filled with nervous excitement,” he says.
Apart from playing a catalytic role in various boards, he’s now busy commissioning artworks for his lovely home on the picturesque East Coast Road, built with a lot of glass, of course, as well as other Saint-Gobain solutions: gypsum ceilings, acoustic panels, solar control films, waterproofing; surrounded by a profusion of greenery, the house offers breathtaking views of the sea in the distance. “The art will have Tamil Nadu at its core, reflecting our traditions, building on mathematics, technology, expressed through traditional Indian crafts in copper, enamel, embroidery, metal works,” he explains. Post retirement, he is planning to mentor, coach, teach and share his experiences. Excerpts from a conversation.
Forty-five years in Saint-Gobain. How do you look back on your stint?
Three anchor words kept my motivation, engagement, and energy levels high over the past 45 years. They are trust, empowerment and collaboration. Whether it was Grindwell Norton in the first 16 years or the last 29 years in Saint-Gobain, I was empowered, trusted for my insights, capabilities, allowed to take measured risks and supported by a multicultural, multinational team of collaborators.
What would you say were the highs and the lows and the inflection points in your career?
There were many challenging periods, but never a low. There were, may be, six periods of 1-2 years of low business cycles, in these 45 years, that threw up challenges — some internal and mostly external. But I had this conviction that if it was difficult for us, then it is even more so for our competitors. You just needed the competitive spirit and resilience to come out stronger, by application of mind and collaborating with teams. The inflection point in my career was when I was nominated as MD for the large greenfield project in 1996.
And, of course, you empowered your colleagues and teams?
I guess that, in the early phase of my career, I was more prescriptive, using my left brain. However, over the years I developed an inclusive, democratic leadership style that enabled me to get the best from my colleagues. In my career, there were many mentors who made a lasting impact on me; Two key mentors sponsored my career advancement; an influential boss opened my right brain, helped me develop insights on markets, competition; another leader helped me develop a global mindset; a top SG leader trusted my instincts, approved many investments ahead of the curve; and many tolerated my irreverent approach.
However, it is colleagues, a lot of them reporting to me, who made a dramatic difference. Early on in my career I was influenced by an HBR article about building a team that complements rather than mirrors one’s strengths. The team today — many of them are so different from me in their makeup, way of doing things, and their approach to solutions — but collectively we are super-strong. I have been fortunate to identify and develop the right leadership team.
Once you have a great team, I use what I refer to as ‘triple A process’.
I work with them to set our collective aspiration high and, often, way beyond our current capacity, capability and competence. In a fast-growing market our aspiration must far exceed our reach. The second A is for alignment around our purpose of making the world a better home, inspiring them with a vision of being the leader in light and sustainable construction, managing multiple businesses, keeping their autonomy while ensuring alignment; independence complemented by interdependence, specificity but leveraging the group synergy.
The third A is acceleration. While aspiration is an orbital shift, acceleration must be well timed, understanding market, technology, competition, and economic trends. We did that remarkably well during Covid. We survived the initial phase, revived our spirit, and thrived during the resurgence stage. The triple A is how I view and shape our future. What is our collective aspiration? How well are we aligned? And when can we accelerate and be ready for the orbital shift? Remaining where you are, even if you are very successful, I don’t think is an option.
It’s amazing that you didn’t get headhunted along the way to some other company, given your background.
For some reason I was not. I can only speculate. Maybe because I was slightly ahead of the curve in my career, in terms of roles, responsibilities and recognition — I became a regional manager in five years, head of sales and marketing in 11 years, nominated as managing director in 16 years. When that happens, you get excluded because people think that maybe we don’t have a good enough role that is motivating for him. I knew that I thrive when given freedom and empowered to act without looking over my shoulders. Since I got that from the SG group, I never looked around.
Have you met the objectives you set for Saint-Gobain?
Yes, more than what I expected. In India, we were around ₹7,500 crore in 2019. In 2025 we should be ₹17,000 crore. And that too with Covid impacting the economy for over 18 months. We were at ₹1,300 crore PBT [profit before tax], and this year it would be ₹3,400 crore PBT — that is, 2.25X in revenues and 2.6X in PBT. We followed the right steps, invested right through the period of economic turbulence, often ahead of competition, not just in physical assets but also in people, processes, productivity and performance. Today we are number one in glass, in gypsum, insulation, construction chemical, abrasives and ceramics. It is a solid foundation and, given the economic opportunities that India offers, just the beginning!
Is it also the fact that the entire business environment for the products you are in, like housing or automobiles, has seen growth. That helped?
For over six years, from 2019, India’s GDP is expected to grow by 36 per cent in constant prices while we will grow by 120 per cent in nominal terms. We grew faster than the market, gained market share in all our businesses, largely by investing ahead of the market, leveraged our Saint-Gobain Research Centre in Chennai to stay ahead on innovation, undertook digital transformation, and made the right acquisitions.
We are shaping that market — be it green buildings, light and sustainable construction, our value chain or the skill ecosystem that is needed. While in each of our businesses we have strong competitors, collectively there is no one who has the scale, scope, structure, skills, systems and solutions that we bring to the construction and building market..
So, in relation to the competition, in terms of aspiration and the investment to meet those aspirations, whether it’s in innovation, or in shaping the market, we’ve been good at that.
What kind of capacities are you at now for float glass?
Today we have something like 1.4 million tonnes. When we started in 2000, it was 180,000 tonnes, an 8X growth in capacity. When we started there were six players. Our logical market share would have been 15 per cent. Today we have nearly 50 per cent of India’s production. In gypsum we have over 50 per cent of India’s capacity.
In float glass you added another line in Chennai, right?
Correct. We have six plants — three in Chennai, two in Bhiwadi and one in Gujarat; we will be constructing our seventh in Chennai and, in the next 5-6 years, we’ll add at least four more in these locations; we have land available for expansion. We’re happy with Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Gujarat and can confidently state all the governments, be it State or central, have been supportive in our growth and development.
But are you getting enough inputs like sand?
It’s always a challenge because, by nature, sand is driven by regulations, government intervention and local challenges. It is a constant effort to ensure that we get the right quantity and quality at optimal costs.
What is the role your research centre at the IIT-Madras research park played in your expansion?
In our Chennai R&D centre, this year we will be investing close to ₹180 crore in 2025, have filed over 150 patents, introduced over 100 new products in the last five years. Including the work that we do in our global labs, our R&D spend is more than 2 per cent of our revenues. And this will only accelerate as we aspire to double the cumulative patents filed in India in the next four years, developing solutions for hot and humid climates that combine performance and sustainability.
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