Meet Ajay Banga, the new World Bank chief

Brut India

When the President of the World Bank was once asked to not fly commercial or walk to work for his safety...

Transcript

00:00I got shouted at and abused with verbal abuse.

00:04My boss used to come to my house and walk with me to work.

00:08You've always been a visible minority.

00:37Throughout your career.

00:42And has that ever presented any challenges for you

00:44in the workplace?

00:45You do stick out a mile when you look the way I do

00:47and you walk into a company which is a Fortune 50,

00:51Fortune 100 company and you've got,

00:53let's say 200,000 people in the city who work for me.

00:55You just, you've got to get comfortable with your skin

00:59and have a little bit of confidence in yourself

01:01as compared to worrying about what the other person

01:03is thinking about you.

01:05You're going to get stared at,

01:06but you can use that to your advantage

01:08if you care about talking to people.

01:11It's a great conversation opener.

01:13I've made friends who've talked to me about

01:15why I look the way I do and they're still

01:17the best friends I've had out of a casual conversation.

01:21So not in work life.

01:22In your personal life, yeah,

01:23it can be quite an interesting thing.

01:26Look, there are times like after 9-11

01:28when life was very complicated for me

01:31and I lived in New York City at that time

01:33and I'd say the best way I could describe it to you

01:37is I got shouted at and abused with verbal abuse,

01:41no physical abuse fortunately, many times.

01:44But you find your way through it

01:46because you realize that only .5% of the people

01:49or smaller than that are doing that.

01:51The other 99.5% of the people around you

01:53are actually on your side and they care deeply

01:57about what you're feeling at that time.

01:59And so that kind of, if you have that strength,

02:02you can get through a lot of stuff.

02:04Look, I still get randomly pulled out for checking at TSA.

02:07I'm the ultimate random check guy.

02:10But, you know, I, what are you going to do?

02:13You can't fight that.

02:14You're going to just take it with you.

02:16So personally, a lot of things come around you.

02:18My boss at Citi at that time was,

02:20boss is boss is boss, was Sandy Weil

02:22and he called me the second day

02:24after these issues erupted in New York City

02:26and said to me, listen, you're not going to fly commercially

02:30for the next few months.

02:32You can have the company plane,

02:34which I was not entitled to at that time,

02:36to go wherever you've got to go.

02:37I'm not taking a chance with you

02:39getting caught up in security at the airports.

02:41You're not going to do that.

02:42Rule one.

02:43Rule two, you need a car to bring you back and forth

02:45from home.

02:46I used to walk in Manhattan to work.

02:48You can have my car.

02:49And I still walk to work

02:51because dealing with it is more important

02:54than hiding from it.

02:55And yes, I got the looks and I got the odd comment,

02:59but I walk to work and I walk back.

03:01And once in a while, my boss used to come to my house

03:04and walk with me to work.

03:07That's pretty cool.

03:08That's leadership.

03:09And it matters.

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