Syed Javed Hussan Director IGI Investment Bank Limited
BM: And being at Imperial is like the epitome for studying engineering, so where and how exactly did the switch to business happen?
JH: I studied at the Imperial College because my father was a civil engineer, and at 17 I didn't know any better and I just followed my father's guidance and advice, and that is how I decided to go for engineering, I really had no clue about what I really wanted to be and engineering seemed to be a good idea at that time. And Imperial again was really something, other than the fact that I already knew about the imperial College, I knew that Dr Abdus Salam was there and I knew of his achievements and the fact that he was the only Nobel laureate from Pakistan, so basically that was the main reason why I went to Imperial College. Having said that I have to say that it was a very interesting experience and I had a great time there, it was very rigorous, with the learning, I had to undertake the hard work and that was pretty challenging. Engineering is not only intellectually challenging, it is physically challenging as well, some of the geology field trips make you walk 10-15 miles at a time, so it was a great experience. But again, having said that I never quite felt that I was meant to be an engineer.

BM: Were you always drawn to business?
JH: Yes. In fact before going to the imperial College I was always interested in economics and I was very interested in other arts, but as I mentioned earlier, it was just a set of circumstances and partly due to the fact that my father was an engineer and that is why I decided to go into engineering. I worked as an engineer, getting graduated as an engineer for four years and I even did a Masters in transportation again at Imperial College, so it must have been something about that place.

BM: Exactly, something must have been really good there!
JH: It is a fun place, and more than that the location of the Imperial College in London is a fantastic place for any person. You get to do a lot, and I have to say that I spent some of the best years of my life at the Imperial College. But having said that, I never really wanted to be an engineer, it was not something that I would really look forward to for the rest of my life, it was a good training but I really wanted to be in finance and management. So consequently I decided to do an MBA in another very good place in London, which was for people who wanted to live and learn and that was the London Business School was about, and that was great fun too.

BM: And then you worked in London for about 16 years and obviously you had a long professional career there. What was that experience like?
JH: Bearings came after I graduated from the London Business School with my MBA, I came back to Pakistan briefly, I did my MBA, I joined a firm as an analyst, then I went to Hong Kong and stayed there for 6 months. Then I was sent to Karachi as Head of Research, it is quite amusing because I really didn't know too much about research but the good thing is that the market here was not that developed and not too many people in the market knew much about research either at that time. And even better was the fact that most of our clients, the international fund managers knew little or virtually nothing about Pakistan, so I could just easily bluff my way through. But having spent a year in Pakistan, I decided that I really wanted to do a bit more then just Pakistan. That was a very interesting phase in the Pakistani market, it was just opening up, the new Government of Nawaz Sharif had just opened up the markets to international investors for the first time, and it grew from virtually nothing to billions. And there were a great deal of interested find managers for the market, so that was all a really useful experience but as I mentioned earlier, I really wanted to do a bit more than just Pakistan. That's when I left and joined Bearings for Head of Research for India and Pakistan which was quite an interesting experience because it meant a great deal of traveling between Karachi, Bombay and London and having to meet a lot of Indian companies and research them. So I got a lot of exposure here which was truly a joy, and at that point it is interesting how India wasn't significantly more developed in terms of market or in terms of the corporate structures as compared to Pakistan but obviously things have changed now.

BM: I know you are very optimistic about that, but I also know that you are very particular from day one in your career, you feel that just the small tasks define your work ethics now, now that you are in a position to frankly, just sit back and take things easy, but you don't do that. Why?
JH: Well I don't think anyone can just sit back and get things done just like that.

BM: But people could be, at this stage people actually do tend to take the back seat, but I know you say that you will never retire.
JH: I see what you mean and I know how some people might want to do that, but in reality there is always something interesting to do. But I think it is the way in which one has been brought up, and the early education one has. When I went to the Imperial College and I was staying in the dorms, my father asked me how much I needed to sustain myself for a week and I said 30 Pounds and immediately he said, okay you can have 20 Pounds. So to start off, I underestimated what I needed and I didn't exactly have an extravagant taste but I did want to enjoy the good things in life. So I had to work beyond my class hours and I worked as an usher, as a waiter and I think all of these things were useful experiences for me. Many people do that anyway, but I took pleasure in doing them and I think it the very small things, such as working as an usher in a cinema, I got to know a lot about the movie industry and about the cinema, I probably know more about the directors than many movie buffs do. Working as a waiter, especially in some of the good restaurants in London, I got to know lot about food and how things are done there. From there on, I have had a passion for good food and I am even fond of cooking although I am sure that not too many people would agree that it is actually good. So everything leads to a development in one's self and what one can achieve, it is all a process and I think one should never despair about the circumstances that one might have to face, every experience is potentially good and rewarding, it is all about what one chooses to take away, we should all focus on the small things and small details and it is very often that accumulation of trying to perfect these small details that leads to greater perfection. It is forever an aspiration, you never really quite get there, so everyday in trying to improve the processes, trying to improve the research and trying to improve whatever one can improve, it is an accumulative process over a long period of time. The reward for all this is not necessarily in monetary terms, it is what is happening internally in that process of trying to improve, because you learn various deficiencies and weaknesses in one's self and then you obviously try to better yourself accordingly. It is a life long process, and going back to this business of taking it easy, one can't, it is almost like saying that one is near the end, so the process of trying to strive for something and trying to improve something is always there within one and all this is actually a process of living.

BM: Now tell us who are the inspirations in your career? Who are the people that you look up to, or the people who have helped you get better at your work?
JH: There are actually quite a few, as I mentioned earlier, my father is quite an inspiration, someone who is extremely hardworking, someone who is very particular about how work is done and someone who has always been focused on work as a reward in itself. He has always told me that the monetary rewards that come are incidental, the real reward is in the joy that one achieves in the work one is doing. Another very important, immediate inspiration is our Chairman, the person that I in some ways work for, Mr. Syed Baber Ali, who is a great inspiration with his personality, wit and sense of energy, despite the fact that he is reasonably well-placed, he doesn't think of himself as the incredible personality that he really is, he is extremely down to earth, and he has that sense of youth, despite being 80 plus that many 24 years olds might not even have. Everyday he gets up at 6 and is busy by 8, he calls me for ideas and just about everyday he has some new ideas that he wants to implement. So that's the sense of excitement and interest in everything that he does, and he does a lot, and that is inspiring in itself. But also it is the sense of what's right and what is wrong that he has that I really admire.