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<v ->I'm Martin Reeves,</v>

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Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute,

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and author of "The Imagination Machine."

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Welcome to "Leaders on Imagination."

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Today we're delighted to be joined by Aloke Lohia,

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who is the founder and CEO of Indorama.

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It was founded as a specialty chemical company in 1990

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and is now the world's largest producer of PET,

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a leader in tire cords, the fibers that go into tires

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and also a major player in specialty fibers,

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for applications like airbags and hygiene products.

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So welcome Aloke.

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<v ->Thank you, Martin,</v>

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a pleasure to be here.

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<v ->So we're talking about imagination, Aloke,</v>

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what is imagination to you in business?

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<v ->Martin, business is all about imagination,</v>

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and when I started my career, I got a few tips.

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Basically, my father told me, "Look,

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you are in a business where margins are expected

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to contract, not expand and costs are going to go up,

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there's going to be inflation.

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So how are you going to deal with those two things?

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It's going to be our imagination

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and that will be a success."

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So it's been something from day one.

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<v ->Is imagination particularly important today, Aloke?</v>

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<v ->You know, if you look at any statistics,</v>

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the top 20 companies, the top 50 companies

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over the last 20 years, 50 years,

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they don't exist anymore,

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at least not in that relative space anymore.

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And therefore, if it wasn't imagination,

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we couldn't really think of what will be

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in the next 30 years, which is so important.

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<v ->Now, CEOs of large companies,</v>

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especially in established companies,

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tell me that it's pretty hard for large companies

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to reimagine their businesses.

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Why is it hard?

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<v ->Because you just get into your comfort zone,</v>

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especially if you are a successful company.

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When you're successful,

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that's when you have to reinvent yourself,

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that's when you have to say that, "What brought us here,

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will it get us there?"

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And that is where we spend a lot of time,

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I spend personally a lot of time thinking about that.

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So it is a fact of life.

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You have to keep reinventing.

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<v ->So indeed, Indorama,</v>

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your company has reinvented itself several times

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as a PET company, as a specialty chemical company,

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as a specialty fibers company.

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So how do you keep imagination alive at Indorama?

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<v ->Martin, for any success, for any business,</v>

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what you're trying to do is create value,

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and you know, you start with shareholder value

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and then it evolves into stakeholder value.

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And today ESG is a big part of all of that.

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For IVL, the company I operate,

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basically we started from a commodity business

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and then as we grew, I wanted to add the HVA,

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the specialty platform, for a couple of reasons.

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I just didn't want to do a commodity.

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I didn't want to do it in one country.

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I wanted to de-risk my portfolio.

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That's why we went global.

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We lucked out, I had a very strong, capable team with me

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who helped me manage the business

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and therefore, little by little, country by country,

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we added the fiber portfolio that you mentioned

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that was our HVA portfolio.

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And we continued to do the same.

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Basically, we are the largest in PET.

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PET is a great plastic, is recyclable,

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we can do mechanical recycling already very well,

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we are looking at chemical recycling,

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but the biggest challenge now for the next 30 years

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is on climate change,

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how do we get to zero carbon?

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<v ->And what are some of the management techniques you use</v>

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to make sure that your managers are not just executing,

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but they're actually imagining five and ten years ahead?

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What are some of the techniques you use?

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<v ->Well, you know, you have to keep evolving yourself,</v>

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but you can only evolve as much.

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What we have done, what I've done

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is that I have great people,

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so what I've done is I've asked my greatest of people

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who have run the business for the last 10 years,

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15 years, to own the business.

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So I called them the operating management.

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Then I've built a new capability of leaders

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who are helping me with making the company future-proof,

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you can call it.

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Basically by investing in a global system, a global ERP,

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standardizing a few things that can be standardized.

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I don't want to take over the entrepreneurship

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from the operating leaders,

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but I do want them to take benefit and leverage on the tools

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as a company, as we grow,

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we do need some systems and standards.

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So I'm deploying those, plus I'm getting new leaders

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from across the world, from the best tests.

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And this team of six people, we work on our strategy,

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we are working on the next five years.

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"Where are we going in the next 10 years?"

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Those sort of things.

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<v ->Now obviously, vision without execution</v>

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is not very helpful and execution without vision

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is not very helpful, and they're very different things.

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How do you make sure that your management team

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is thinking about both of those things,

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maintaining that tension?

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<v ->As you said, everything is a balance.</v>

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As I think of our portfolio and I think of our stakeholders,

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basically I know that we have a large business,

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we make 15 million tons of this or that,

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and we are in 34 countries,

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we grow at double digits every year,

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so all of this takes agility.

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So on one side, the operating team,

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they are doing a fantastic job on that.

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For my top leadership of our six,

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what we call the IMC, Indorama Management Council,

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we pay maybe a third of our time on operations

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to help our teams,

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but then another third on HR matters

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because the company and my leadership team

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is as old as me.

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So over the next five, ten years,

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we will have to ensure that there is the next set of leaders

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and they will be coming with this mindset in any case.

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We just have to ensure that we get the right leaders

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in place.

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<v ->Well, thank you so much Aloke, for sharing your thoughts</v>

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on business imagination with us today.

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For more information on imagination in business,

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please visit The Imagination Machine website

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displayed on the slide.