At a captivating book launch event hosted by the Madras Management Association, author and innovation leader Mr. Jeroen Tas unveiled his groundbreaking work “Changing Fast and Slow,” exploring how organizations can successfully navigate transformation in an era of unprecedented change.
The Five Paradigm Shifts: From Control to Contribution
Mr. Jeroen Tas
Author, Tech Investor & Innovation Leader
Thank you for this great opportunity and for Renuka and Gopi helping me shape what I’m going to talk about. I was looking at these intro videos and you know what they reminded me of? The Starship Enterprise on its 5-year mission to explore new worlds. That’s Star Trek. I always thought of that as a great mission statement. Then look at JFK saying we’re going to put a man on the moon, or Elon Musk saying we’re going to build a city in space. Why is a simple sentence so impactful? Because you imagine something. That’s our great gift as humans—we can imagine, rationalize, feel. Let me start with that because it’s foundational.
I want to go back to the basic questions of an organization and people. If you recognize the title “Changing Fast and Slow,” it’s inspired by Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow.” He tells us we have a fast brain that senses and reacts quickly, but if we lived purely on our fast brain, we’d be like animals. God gave us our slow brain so we can think, take distance, learn. But he warns: be careful of biases and traps. You have to be conscious. A lot of what we discussed in the book was consciousness. How can I become a conscious leader and make conscious decisions?
To be conscious, you must answer basic questions. First: Why? Why does my organization exist? What’s my role in the world? What’s my contribution? Second: Who? For whom do I do this? What’s my ecosystem? Third: What do I provide—what value do I create? And value is always in the eyes of the beholder. Then: How do I balance fast and slow? Do I want fast transactions or deep, slow relationships? And finally: When do I truly prove the value? What events make customers say, “These are the people I trust”?
Now, what’s the world we’re living in? You all know the huge impact technology has on your lives. Gen AI is way more powerful than any technology before it. It’s cognitive technology—we never had that. We had mechanical “if-then-else” technology. But if you put something into an LLM, even its builders cannot predict the outcome. We live in a world where geopolitics is super dynamic, everything is connected. We’re not in an era of change; we’re in a change of eras.
When I stepped down from Philips, I started reading on complex system theory. I concluded that organizations are treated like machines—processes, KPIs, goals, cascaded plans. But reality is a complex system. Here’s the dirty secret: you cannot control a complex system, but you can influence it. Think of Chennai—nobody controls it, but you can influence how it develops, how businesses grow.
We identified five major paradigm shifts. First, we moved from scarcity to abundance. I grew up in the Netherlands in the 1960s with two television channels. Now, how many products can you buy on Amazon? Half a billion. Think of Gen AI—the knowledge you can generate, the agents you can build. We have an abundance of opportunity but we’re constrained in our minds. We don’t see it.
Second, we moved from the past to ecosystems. I learned about efficiency, optimizing value chains, locking in customers. Volkswagen has 21,000 suppliers with contracts determining price, quality, delivery. Then Elon Musk comes along with EVs and charging stations—software with a car enclosure. Why couldn’t Volkswagen see it? Because of the existential layer—beliefs about what people want. The Chinese saw it. Xiaomi, a phone company, became a car company. In two years, they launched a car. In one hour, they sold 50,000 cars. Why? Because they had an ecosystem. A value chain can never compete with an ecosystem.
Third, we shifted from pipelines to platforms. A pipeline is linear, slow, with little feedback. A platform orchestrates. It starts with users. My purpose: help creative people get their book to market. I self-published my book on Amazon, never met anyone there. They couldn’t print in India, so I found Notion Print in Chennai. They said upload with us, we’ll print and get it on Flipkart and Amazon. That’s the platform. John Deere, 130 years old—they thought they were in machinery. Now they’re in agricultural optimization. They take soil samples, use satellites, cameras, sensors, link it with weather data and software from partners. Their purpose is to dramatically improve customer yield. Anybody can do this, but first identify who you want to do it for and lift your value proposition.
Fourth, we moved from control to contribution. Control comes with KPIs, processes, rigid systems. The approach should be contribution. The more you contribute, the more powerful you are. Apple has 2 million businesses running on their platform. They contribute to people fulfilling their dreams. If you contribute, you have five levers: direction, value creation, power distribution, motivation, and culture.
Direction—are you clear on your vision? Your mission should be concrete. Where will you be in 5 years? But if your strategy is a five-year plan you’ll stick to, forget it. Nobody can tell you what the world looks like in five years. Strategy should allow you to understand what’s changing around you.
Value creation must be constantly validated through feedback. Don’t come to me with a business plan saying in five years you’ll do $25.5 million in revenue. There’s no way you’ll know that. Value is entirely based on feedback—that’s why I love platforms and technology. You know what people do, what they want, how they use it.
Then distribute power and decision rights. Does everything need to roll up to the CEO? Or do you say: the big challenges get resolved as close to the problem as possible? A supply chain problem cannot be solved by supply chain alone—it needs sales, marketing, manufacturing, partners. Create multidisciplinary teams targeted to solve problems.
Motivate people. In large companies, most work at 60% of their potential because they’re put in a box and told what to do. Smart people want a challenge and need guardrails. Give them a challenge, a goal, a great team—they’ll solve it. The more rules, processes, KPIs, the harder it will be.
Culture is most important. You can create urgency—we have to get this product out. But you cannot do it for five years. You need to build in slowness too. Give people time to think, reflect, take buffers so you can run when you need to.
Fifth, from projects to waves. If you want to change your organization, it’s not a project—it’s waves and rhythm. I’m a surfer. Catch a wave at the right time, turn at the right time, it’s a great feeling. Turn two seconds too late, you get crushed. There’s rhythm to things. You have to find the rhythm, tune into your customers’ rhythm, tune into your ecosystem’s rhythm. This is way more effective than projects because I’ve been in situations where people said the issue is poor project management or communication. But project management won’t solve fundamental problems if people aren’t aligned and motivated.
The ecosystem is about nature. Nothing grows alone. There’s way more collaboration than competition in nature. First question: with whom do you engage? What kind of relationship do you want? What value are you contributing? Think about what you can do for somebody else. If you create value and you’re fair, you can monetize it. But think value first, monetization second. Then what role do you want to play? Orchestrator? Partner? Commodity player? Most people don’t do strategy this way, but I think it’s probably the most important thing.
How do you become an ecosystem leader? I can guarantee you—if you micromanage, you never become an ecosystem leader. You have to let go. The essence of leadership is co-sensing—jointly feel what’s going on, what people want, need. Co-share: find partners you trust and together shape it. We have endless opportunity. If you recognize these five shifts, internalize them, you have to act. The only way to make sense of it is plunge in, move with it, and join the dance.
From Contract to Transformation: The Entrepreneur’s Vivid Imagination
Ms. Renuka Ramnath
Founder, MD & CEO, Multiples Alternate Asset Management
It’s a privilege to be here for my very dear friend Jeron’s book launch in my motherland. I’ve read every word—it’s like a textbook. Every business leader should read it because this is the only way to succeed in the coming years.
I want to share why Jeron is the perfect author for this book—he embodies everything he’s written. My first association with him was 1999. I wanted to start a company called SAS—Software-as-a-Service, though we didn’t call it that then. Banks like ICICI could buy software and pay license fees. But midsize US banks, especially small cooperative banks, couldn’t afford it. The internet was becoming real. I went to my boss and said: why not build a SAS company for banking software on a pay-per-use basis?
I couldn’t do it alone—I don’t understand technology. But we had domain expertise in ICICI. We reached out to Jeron and Jerry. They jumped on the idea. We couldn’t do it alone either, so we went to Tipco—their platform sat in every respectable US bank. We said: let’s make this SAS-appropriate. We negotiated a small office in Tipco, partnered with Plexus Technologies for UX. Four of us got together with limited capital and built this product. It failed. The internet bubble burst, venture capitalists were bleeding, and then came September 11, 2001.
But the innate quality—seeing the future, putting partnerships together without worrying about who’s bigger. If ICICI had said “I’m biggest,” or Tipco demanded a lion’s share, we couldn’t have gotten together. Most inability to do the right thing comes from our own thinking, mindset, and ego. My biggest lesson in 40 years of business: keep ego in some safety vault and forget about it. You’ll always make wrong decisions if ego runs ahead of opportunity. Jeron embodied this. We were 15 years early to market—SAS became a buzzword in 2015, but we were doing this in 1999.
Fast forward to another example: I met Vallian around 2012-13. He was brought back to run Chola Mandalam Finance. I refused to come to Chennai initially. But my colleagues begged me. I came just for dinner and was completely convinced he’d win. First, his humility—from a prestigious family with a silver spoon, yet so grounded. Second, clarity. He showed me every micro detail: what happens in branches, human productivity, technology use, which businesses would shut down, how they’d refocus on core business.
I was a complete convert. That journey was a complete joy—from returns and understanding him. I’ve been a thought partner on his acquisitions and investments. If you unravel Vallian’s DNA, everything Jeron wrote in his book evidences itself. When Jeron talks about three layers—operational, strategic, existential—Vallian can fix many things at the operational layer. Fixing the strategic is tough because the group is old with set beliefs. Fixing the existential—why should I build an electric vehicle company?—is hardest.
But he took the sense that the group is about innovation, engineering, attracting talent. Now he operates in an ecosystem. For commercial vehicles, the fundamental thing is financing. Without it, nobody buys. Who finances electric vehicles? Who bets on them? Who determines battery life and value? So partnering with financiers, bringing credibility and forward thinking—beautiful example.
I read Jeron’s book and looked at all our investments. By definition, private equity picks the best entrepreneurs. Jeron has given language for why they succeed. We invested in Delivery when it was 150 crores, valued at $100 million. Today it’s worth $3.5 billion. We’ve been with them. They had abundance mindset, ecosystem mindset. Jeron’s book gave me language for why many of our companies succeeded.
Another example: PVR Satyam. Raj Biji said it’s not about control or ownership—I have to deliver what the market needs. Investors want income diversification. Patrons want movie diversity and outstanding food and beverages. Looking at Raj’s DNA, he’s successful because—when I look at how the concept from Jeron’s book applies—he understands all three layers and operates with the ecosystem mindset.
I invested in PVR in 2002, valuing it at 100 crores with 45 crores for 48% stake. It’s now worth 15-16,000 crores. It’s never been about my stake. It’s about making it successful and relevant to patrons and shareholders. Every competitor exited at 400-600 crores. We stayed. Disruptions will happen faster. If you’re sleeping and your existential layer dominates, you’ll become extinct much faster. Jeron’s book is an excellent guide and an alarm bell.
All sensing happens at grassroots level. When I joined ICICI in the mid-80s, all sensing happened at the top. Today, I insist: what sensing do you have from the ground? People closest to customers pick up changes and signals about extinction. It’s important every company understands and fixes the three layers but more importantly listens to grassroots people. Co-sensing and co-envisioning are absolute musts for survival.
I looked at one investment—NQ, which makes topicals for derma companies. They had massive production lines in Goa serving GSK, Galderma, FISA. Very competitive, thin margins, but fantastic ROE track record. Our thesis: transform from contract manufacturer to a company with branded products. After investment, contract manufacturing took a huge hit. The entrepreneur was nervous—if your core shook, forget R&D, just focus on manufacturing.
Most investors would say that. But we said: nothing doing. We raise 300 crores for R&D—that money is lockboxed. Go spend it. Carry out your dream. This entrepreneur, even if I send a WhatsApp, sends back: “I woke up thinking about you. I pray for you. I am everything today thanks to you.”
He’s so proud he’s probably the only pharma company whose R&D investment exceeded profits. When he exited, his EBITDA was higher than the turnover at which we invested. That’s the beauty of managing your core—bringing solid stability, values that Jeron spoke about, creating financial and human capital. He took his products to the US. How you build partnership ecosystems to experiment and become a transformed company—that’s the transformation we believe in.
The Practitioner’s Journey: Applying Transformation Frameworks
Dr. Gopi Kotiswaran
Co-founder, Dzruptiv AI
It’s a real privilege to share a personal intro to Jeron. I first met him in 2011 in Amsterdam. I was CEO of Philips’ wearables business at a top 50 leadership meeting. Then Jeron walks in and there’s this buzz—that’s the new CIO, he’s got entrepreneurial experience. I thought, one day I have to meet him. As luck had it, he sat next to me.
Later I heard why. Jeron builds Emphasis here, knows India well, comes into a room where 70-80% are Dutch males, sees one Indian, and sits next to him. As a typical selfish business head always looking for resources, when someone from the top five of 100,000 employees sits next to me, I put my charming hat on. I tell him: “Philips is great. I’ve read about what you’ve done. But there are things we need to change.” He turns and says: “Gopy, we have to change a lot here—the architecture, everything.” He’s driven, a proper entrepreneur. From then, I said: this is not your typical CIO. This is Jeron Tas. He’s one of us. He wants to shake up the whole place.
We became very good friends. Anything on the tech front, I reach out to him. Post-COVID, we co-invested in Ankora Health, an exciting digital health company in the Netherlands. After COVID, we sat in their office doing a business review. The technical review happens—all in—he’s asking: what is this? Why are you doing this? Is this modular? Is this expandable? The tech guys are directly discussing with him. I’m in total awe. How can somebody at the CIO-strategy level come down and have this kind of discussion? I see him whiteboarding the entire data architecture. The company implements what he put together. I was super impressed.
After the meeting, he leans back and says: “Gopy, for 10 years I tried doing this in Philips and nobody listened. This startup did it in a few months.” He loves that. He’s at heart an entrepreneur, an iconoclast. He wants to break rules, do new things. If you read the book, you’ll see how he thinks about all this.
In February when I visited him, he invites me home. Beautiful house on the canals of Amsterdam—one side faces one canal, the other faces another. He’s a great host, makes tea, discusses concepts. No small talk. He got his book out, gave it to me and said: “Gopy, I want unfiltered feedback. Dutch feedback. Not the indeed feedback.”
My company Disruptive AI focuses on helping enterprises enable AI transformations. Some concepts in the book we’re applying directly. Jeron spent half a day yesterday in our office seeing how the world is changing, how ecosystems and platforms evolve. I just want you to know: he’s one of us. If you want to reach out, send a LinkedIn message. Be prepared—he’s intense. There’s no light conversation. Any conversation with him is super intense.
I’ll give a personal intro to him. Renuka is a very close friend—going back 20-30 years. She flew down from Bombay exactly for this. We have a lot to talk about. Let me warn you: some of what Jeron says is pretty heavy. But when he says it, it looks light. Hopefully you have a great time listening.
The key thing—Jeron is not an academician or professor. He’s a practitioner who applied his entire business experience and converted it into frameworks we practitioners can apply in our companies. That’s the special part. There are many examples in the book, but it’s better hearing Renuka’s real-life examples. She’s looked at concepts from the book and seen how founders apply them.
One more thing—thanks for that fabulous session. When he asked me about his son’s company, how he built a predictive algorithm in four to six hours when I thought it would take weeks—my Dzruptiv AI team sometimes I tell them: can I have it by end of Monday? Five minutes later they give it to me. I feel embarrassed. But I spent time understanding what they did in five minutes. I’m thinking a week or two, and they’re using tools and technologies I’m learning about. That’s how you enable it. Sensing has to happen at the ground level.
