Mala Baliraj,in the CEO's chair

Mala Baliraj is Massy Wood’s first joint venture CEO. Her appointment is impressive, not the least because she’s a woman in a leadership position at a major energy services company – traditionally a male-dominated sector – but she’s also not technically trained in engineering or finance. Instead, Baliraj, 43, is a former human resource executive, and – providing an inspiration to English majors at university everywhere struggling to find a purpose in life – a graduate in English literature and a former secondary school teacher. She’s also a mother of two “woke” pre-teens.

Her experiences have coalesced to provide a unique perspective on what it means to manage a modern workforce.

“In this kind of business, to be a CEO you're either an engineer or an accountant. You can either manage the money or you could, you know, you can speak in technical language,” she laughed during an interview with Business Day last week. She’s learnt the business along the way, though, so despite not having that technical qualification, she’s quite comfortable around technical knowledge.

“I mean as you grow up in an organisation and you have strong people around you, you don't need to know exactly how to things happen but you do need to understand what the concept is and the implications for operations and production. I know as much as I need to and I’m quite open to asking for help when I don’t know and need things explained.”

She might not manage the money or the technical operations but coming from HR means she knows how to manage and that, in itself, is an asset.

“The people that you have around you, I think, is really the success of any leader, whether you're a man or woman. The strength of how the business is run comes from the team that you have around you and I have a great example of that – a really-balanced team in terms of diversity as well as experience. I've learned a lot from (my team) and I’ve learnt that it really comes down to how you motivate and work with people. I found that that's really the keys to success.”

Emerging young leader

Baliraj herself is young as far as the typical image of a CEO goes, so she well understands the importance for a mix of youth and experience. The changing workforce – from the varying needs of the workforce, the 24-hour on-call shifts and the rapid onset of technology requires a dynamic approach that melds both perspectives and she is happy to facilitate. Energy sector leaders, she said, have always been presented as the typical older, wiser man, but she believes there’s a turnabout happening in the industry.

“Diversity is not just the male-female balance but it's also the age group. At the (2020 Energy Conference last month) I saw a significant increase in the number of people in their late 30s and early 40s contributing significantly to running businesses and having senior positions.” At Massy Wood, Baliraj was part of a succession planning programme, groomed to lead the company.

"Before, I think companies wouldn’t look past someone younger than 45 but I see a change in that in terms of the industry’s willingness to take more risk. Because there's a gap, just among all the people and availability of the right resources to run businesses are not at that (very senior) level. So, what I would say it's a willingness that organisations are taking on to take a risk, or what they consider to be risk for the age groups.” Technology makes a compelling argument for change.

“Everybody wants digitisation, everybody wants technology and innovation. And you find there’s a little bit of hesitancy in terms of the older generations to embrace that much more than a younger generation. So, even us, I mean being at 43 is not exactly young and you do still have challenges because I’m not as savvy as say, someone younger, but I’m more open (to technology). I think that is one of the proponents that pushes the change to consider younger blood in very senior positions.”

Balance as a working mother

Baliraj is not yet a year in her position but she had been approached to assume the role as CEO a few years before. She was always designated as an heir apparent, being part of the direct succession planning for the company but she held back until her children – an 11-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl – were older.

“The idea of the role came up before me taking it up last year and I've always rejected the thought, primarily because I felt that I would have had to give up, I would have to sacrifice for my (time with my children). So, I struggled personally when my children were very young.”

Growing up, her mother worked at home, and Baliraj’s mom-guilt would surface when she considered her experience as a child with what she was giving to hers.

“In the back in my head that always bothered me. Whether my children didn't know what they didn't have, I kind of knew what they didn't have. So for me the decision to take on a role that may have required more from me, I feel like I couldn't have done that at that point in time, and then all the books tell you about it bonding time which in children is important, they just make you feel guilty. So now that my kids (are older) I felt that most of what I had to invest with them (personally), that time is almost done. The investment now is emotionally, in a different space and it doesn't have as much to do with my physical presence.”

She also admitted that, the higher she rose in the ranks at work, the more flexibility she had to balance her life.

“Being with my kids, and still being able to work even though I'm not sitting in the office, it's more of an opportunity that I had when I was in HR. (Now) I can pick my kids up from school and have a Skype call at home, be switched on to the office but I'm in the presence of my kids. So, the flexibility (makes) me realise okay, I'm not sacrificing as much as I thought I would. But had they been at a different age, and I would have found that I was taking away from them something that I got from my mother.”

Her experience has made her in some ways, more empathetic to the experiences of others and she’s been able to work that into her management style.

“(When) you give people what they need, they give you twice back. I had women with families, single parents, people taking care of sick parents – me giving them flexibility to do what they had to do never took away from when I needed something. Sure, there may be people who try to take advantage of the system but I mean if you have the right behaviours in people and the right maturity level, I have found if you give people flexibility to manage their personal lives, it’s definitely a win-win situation.”

Leadership styles matter, she acknowledged, because their choices shape the culture of the organisation.

“I have found that how you treat people and when they come before you as a leader, you have to consider the whole person, not just the one-dimensional role they may have in the company. It helps me to keep the fact that (I’m dealing with) a mother or father or single parent and to something that allows me empathy to say okay you know, you need to do things so I won't schedule meetings at a time when I know you can’t make it. And then I find that something like that you get nothing but benefits out of it.”