blog:A Formidable Agenda
There is a lot of work–dirty work–to do. His companies have gained notoriety on charges of harming the environment. Most of his projects in India have been extremely controversial, delayed by green concerns and there has been a lot of mystery around the Vedanta brand name.
Agarwal will need to expand his bauxite mining operations in Orissa, which were started early this year after stormy negotiations. He will have to crank up some old iron ore mines, long given up as inefficient. He then has to sew up a pending deal with Asarco, the third largest copper maker in the U.S., and build power plants with a capacity of 11,000 megawatts. Finally, he has to negotiate a deal with the Indian government to sell its residual stake in Bharat Aluminum Company (Balco) and Hindustan Zinc (HZL), which he bought a few years ago.
A typical businessman would have relied upon his deputies to execute his vision, but not Agarwal. He has padded up and come to the middle of action. The Big-Picture Man is looking at the details and taking spot decisions to speed up execution. And his decisions are making a difference in the energy levels of senior management as well as the rank and file.