The Voice of Tony Chapman, Leader,
School of Leadership
With more than 20 years of experience in media and television production, I had decided it was time for a change of pace. I joined the School of Leadership at Satyam in March 2008 as a leadership development consultant. I quickly became immersed in the training programs, teaching conflict management tools, tips on executive presence, and presentation skills.
At the end of 2008, my family traveled back to Australia for the Christmas break. On the evening of January 7, I was at a party at my sister-in-law’s in a beachside suburb of Melbourne. It was the usual raucous family event, with friends dropping in and wine flowing. In the midst of all this, I decided to ring the office in India. This is how I learned about the massive fraud. I felt a bizarre sense of dislocation, magnified by the distance between my family there and my colleagues in Hyderabad. I imagined what they must be going through and their reactions to this news.
On my return to work a few days later, it was clearly “all hands on the pumps.” Faculty and support staff were gearing up for crisis management and morale-sustaining initiatives that could be disseminated to the staff at zero cost. One key communication platform during this time was the webcast studio we had been testing for the past year, known as Planet Satyam. As web television assumed growing importance as a communications tool that could operate on a minimal budget, I was drawn into working in the studio. My plans to develop my skills as a leadership learning professional were put on hold. We had a number of memorable webcasts, including series such as Rise of the Phoenix and Weathering the Storm. At the end of January, we ran a five-hour-plus webathon to raise funds for a local orphanage with which we were heavily involved. We had one camera going live and another crew picking up interviews at the back of the webcast area. The enthusiasm of everyone involved carried the day, and we managed to raise a considerable sum. By the end of October, web television was being used to deploy almost 90 percent of all learning. My desire to be a leadership development professional remained sidelined, so I decided it was time for me to move on.
