Surinder Hundal is very fortunate to have a wise father. He has always believed in passion: that if you study what you enjoy, and do something at which you excel and about which you feel passionate, then you will find a fulfilling career naturally. She has made this belief her own, and her passion for excellence in business is clear as soon as she starts talking.
Fresh from completing a PhD in Pharmacology, Surinder reached a series of crucial realisations that shaped her future career. Although she enjoyed the life sciences, and the ‘detective work’ of research, she knew she didn’t have the temperament and personality for it – she was too sociable to be stuck in a lab for days on end. She also knew she didn’t want to work in the pharmaceutical industry at that time. And finally, she knew that she wanted to travel and work around the world.
Telecoms was a pioneering industry in the early 1980s. The deregulation and liberalisation of businesses, recently exploited satellite technology, and the first inklings of mobile phones (albeit that they were the size of small suitcases) presented exciting opportunities.
When she saw BT International’s advert in the Sunday Times calling for candidates for their graduate programme, Surinder jumped at the opportunity to work in different parts of the world in a sector that could have a very positive impact on development.
She had taken to heart some valuable advice from a friend: when choosing a career, the sector, the company and the department are all important. But just as important is choosing your boss.
Although not able to choose her boss at BT from the beginning, speaking to Surinder it soon becomes evident, that just as much as her bosses chose her, she selected them.
Her first six months on the job Surinder spent as a ‘gopher’ for the BT International Board. Not exactly glamorous, but it required her to speak to people across the organisation in order to write up the required reports.
This gave her a bird’s eye view of BT, and led to her encounter with the head of BT Maritime and Aeronautical Services, a man she felt she would like to work with. On discovering that they had only a small marketing department Surinder volunteered her services, convincing her new boss with the opportunities she identified for new markets: the growth of the North Sea oil and gas sector, and changes happening with communications in the shipping and aeronautical sector.
Her services were accepted, and she accepted the support BT offered to do her part-time MBA in marketing, customising her new knowledge for her fledgling department. In the role she was involved with the roll-out of satellite services and the launch of the first aeronautical service for airline passengers.
This was not the last time Surinder put herself forward for a role that didn’t exist. From her description of her career through BT and beyond, it is clear that she always calculated who she could learn from, what she could learn and what she could deliver when it came to volunteering herself for a new role. She was never scared to “learn by doing”.
From Maritime and Aeronautical Services she moved to a brand new business unit in BT developing and pioneering the company’s international business. From there, she migrated to join the newly formed international unit within Corporate Relations Department to support BT’s international business-to business market development in Asia Pacific. This influential role was the chance she’d been after - to work and live in different parts of the world.
Surinder is driven by her self-described innovative streak: “I always want to “do new, do different and do better.” And to this end she is a risk-taker and a continuous learner, firmly believing that you should learn something new every single day.
But underpinning this is her self-awareness, which has allowed her to do identify traits that could have caused her problems: “I’m a big picture thinker. I’m not good at ‘today’. I want to fix tomorrow and the next day. I hire people who are very good at ‘today’.”
She is also adaptable – flexible with new business cultures and living in new countries, a characteristic that she believes has been key to her success.
But, although she may be adaptable, on two core beliefs Surinder is inflexible: “In business you should never compromise your integrity, and you should always be intellectually honest. Speak up when you need to speak up, and speak sincerely. No matter how unpopular it makes you.”
Her wanderlust temporarily satiated - having managed programmes for BT across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim - Surinder came back to the UK in 1996 and put herself forward to lead PR and communications development at ICO Global Communications, a $4 billion start-up that had little more than a logo at that point.
During her time at ICO Surinder learnt that old but invaluable lesson: you can’t control or do everything yourself. She laughs: “Don’t try to be a lone heroine; the danger is you’ll become a dead heroine.” Fortunately she survived.
“I’m also not good at personal PR,” she confesses. “I’ve always believed that my actions would speak for themselves. But this isn’t always the case.” It’s not that she advises people to loudly proclaim their brilliance, but rather to be aware of cultural differences in how business is done that can lead silence to be interpreted as politically motivated ‘secrecy’.
Having worked around the world she has experienced many different business cultures, and finds the US and UK culture is usually highly politicised, especially in comparison to the Finnish way of doing business. “You don’t need to become involved in the politics, but you do need to be aware of it.”
When Surinder was head-hunted by Nokia in 2000, she was initially wary of the proposed role to head just one aspect of communications. But it ticked the boxes for sector and company, and on meeting him, Surinder had found the CEO of Nokia to be inspirational.
“One conversation with the CEO changed my mind about internal communications being too narrow a field”, she explains. “He talked less about communications but more about company culture, about his expectations for Nokia as a global brand, employer and business.” He talked about the challenges and opportunities over the next five years of employing and uniting 55,000 people around the world.
These were challenges that Surinder relished, and her achievements in this area she rates as one of her most satisfying business accomplishments. “I worked with a great team. We got to reposition in people’s minds that internal communications is a core, not a peripheral competency. It is more about the way in which we connect, network and communicate, and about everybody in the company owning communications.”
Although she still oversaw the traditional internal communication, she was able to bring her marketing background in to play – segmenting the workforce for communications planning, bringing in new media, and making the brand as much of a force internally, as it was externally.
In 2007 Surinder took a break to look at opportunities beyond telecoms. She wanted to focus on positive partnerships – on the combined force for good that could come from governments, not-for-profit organisations and big businesses working together.
A Diploma in Cross-Sector Partnerships from the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry was her starting point. There she got chatting to one of her tutors, who worked with the International Business Leader’s Forum (IBLF), an organisation focused on developing sustainable business practices and corporate responsibility. It was a conversation that led her to her current position as IBLF’s Director of Communications.
For Surinder the IBLF is a chance for her to ‘repackage’ her skills and to direct her passion at changing how people see the role of business in society. “In many ways it is still developing territory,” she explains. “So the scope for doing new, doing better and doing different is enormous. There is huge opportunity to be original.” And this is something Surinder has never shied away from.
Read Surinder's advice on a sound career strategy & working in corporate communications >
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