A gift for a new CEO, or for the members of your board
A new CEO receives flowers, a framed something, and a great many congratulations. What the role brings is a different thing: a set of decisions that only they can take, with the cost of each one visible in advance, and nobody above them to ask. The gift that fits is one that speaks to that, quietly, from the desk.
A board is the same situation shared among eight or twelve people, each of whom has already received every corporate gift there is. For a board, the gift that works is one that respects their time, that each member can use alone, and that says something about the kind of decisions the board exists to take.
The Bhagavad Gita opens with exactly this moment. Arjuna is the most capable person on the field, he knows his duty, and he puts down his bow because he can see what doing it will cost. The conversation that follows is the oldest text we have on taking a decision when the right answer and the hard answer are the same one.
Gifts for people at the top of the organisation
The Ethical Leader’s Gita, with a bookplate
Each verse of the Bhagavad Gita on its own page, with the meaning in English and Hindi and a reflection on what it asks of a person who leads others. A bookplate carries the recipient’s name and your words. For a board, a set of matching copies, one per member, with the chair’s note in each.
A first-morning gift rather than a first-day gift
Time the delivery for the first week in the role, with a line suggesting the book is read a page a morning before the day begins. It then becomes the one thing from the appointment that is still in use a year later.
For a board, a session alongside the books
For orders of 50 copies or more, the author offers a 90-minute conversation on the Bhagavad Gita and the decisions a leader faces, in person in Ahmedabad or online. Boards and leadership teams can take it together.
Keep it inside the usual limit
The book’s MRP of ₹4,995 sits within the ₹5,000 figure most governance and gifting policies work to. Single copies are ₹4,295 delivered within India; a board set of 10 or more is ₹4,160 a copy.
The Ethical Leader’s Gita
Each of the 700 verses of the Bhagavad Gita on a page of its own, with the Sanskrit, a transliteration, the meaning in English and in Hindi, and a reflection on what the verse asks of a person who leads others. An 880-page hardback with jacket, 11 by 8.5 inches, with forewords by Prof. Dr. Sunil Maheshwari and Prof. Dr. Vishal Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad. MRP ₹4,995. On this site ₹4,295 including courier within India, and from ₹4,160 per copy for 10 copies or more.