What can we learn from Rajat Gupta case?

Till last year, Rajat Gupta was a role model for anyone who dreams of coming to USA for higher education and then living a perfect American dream. His early academic career is very inspirational, when despite the death of both his parents very early, he was able to continue his studies and made it to IIT Delhi. He was later admitted to Harvard Business School without any work experience, which was extremely rare in those days. Since he became the first person born outside USA to rise to the position of Managing Partner of McKinsey and Company, he has been one of the most prominent examples of Indians and IITians making it big in USA through sheer merit and hard work. In his capacity at McKinsey, Gupta was recognized as the first Indian-born CEO of a global corporation. Gupta has been a pillar of many PAN IIT activities and events in the USA.

He was convicted of insider trading. In simple words, he leaked confidential boardroom discussions of major companies on the board of which he served. In most examples cited by prosecutors, he would make a phone call to now convicted financial scammer Raj Rajaratnam tipping him of confidential information and within minutes Rajaratnam would buy or sell shares of that company. In a financial system of publicly listed companies, the very premise of confidentiality of board decisions is at the core of fairness. That is why there are very strict anti-insider trading laws in the US.

Now what we learn from this case:

• If a system is strong enough and fair enough for people from any part of the world to excel, same system can come back to bite you if you are on the wrong side of the law.
• When you do good work, you directly or indirectly bring glory to your community, country of origin and institution, and same is true when you are convicted of crimes.
• No individual is above the law, and one should try to maintain highest level of ethics in all actions, which is actually more stringent than simply following all laws of the land.
• Your past record and accomplishments may not help you in the future for your present crimes.
• Choose your friends well.
• Do not make phonecalls to potential criminals, not at all after confidential company meetings, where that criminal has financial interests.
• Know the laws. Of course Gupta knew all the laws he violated. However as an average international student and as a new immigrant, make extra efforts to know the laws of the land. Ignorance of law is never a good excuse.
• Finally, Rajat Gupta is a perfect example of how any young person should begin and lead his professional life. But the sad end of his professional life teaches us to be very careful and ethical in all that we do.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajat_Gupta