Career lessons to learn from Ganhuyag Ch. Hutagt

After working 18 months for XacBank I wanted to write a post about this person who is my CEO and father of 4 who is one of the most influential figures in Mongolia and beyond. Everyone knows that he is a Rotarian and named Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum together with 200 other leaders of the world and also founded the CEO Club here in Mongolia and a diplomat.

I tell people who you work for is far more important than most of the other factors when it comes to choosing where you want to work. Writing about my boss is very cheesy and I don't know what Penelope has to say about this and I maybe breaking the rules of Blogging by doing so but the reason I write this post is because I learn from him and I wanted to share that in simple English with real examples.

Here we go.

1. Punctuality

- The only time I got a notice of lacking performance was because I was 1 minute late for a meeting with working group which included him. I was late because of my workstation time set automatically by our I.T dept said it was 5 minutes earlier. The Mongolian people say the wrestler who lost always has an explanation so I'll leave it here.

- Friday night when I ran into my boss at 3a.m in one of the popular night clubs in town I assume he will not make it to football practice the next day but I was wrong. The next day I got up hammered from last night pick up my stuff and go to practice. When I get there he is already stretching and ready to run. If my post about hang over is true than he should be more damaged than I should be. We may never know.

2. Down to earth and Never forgets small details (especially when it comes to your employees)

- I remember dozing almost falling asleep during a Marketing division meeting with him. I had a bad cold and I was taking pain killers which made me feel sleepy. He asked me if I had a rough night I explained. 2 weeks later at our company tournament I was smoking a cigarette outside when he ran out and asked to take 2 puffs of my cigarette. (If you are close to someone, like your best buds you share a cigarette with them. Mongolia facts) He said "why are you smoking? It's specially bad for you when you have the cold." For a guy who has 1000 over employees how can he remember my cold? another question left unanswered.

- We were suppose to go to the Parliament house for a seminar. He was in the panel and I had to take down notes for my next press release. His assistant told me to be ready in 10 minutes. I was ready with my camera and notebook in hand. Our HQ is located in Prime Minister Amar's St. right next to the parliament house but I thought he would be taking his driver so I waited in his Vogue downstairs. I called his assistant again just to be sure. She told me I should run because he is already on his way to the gray house. I grabbed my staff and ran out of the building saw him not very far from me running towards to gray house. As we ran toward the building we saw other businessmen and politicians arriving in their big SUV's trying to get by the security and hassling over parking spaces. We were on time.

3. Fast decision maker

During 11th Annual MFC conference in Ulaanbaatar. Farewell dinner with president was organized at Ih-Tenger government facility located just outside of town. I was in charge of entertainment that night. The weather was not on our side and it was an outdoor event. When the guests arrive (500 of them from 50 different countries) it begin to rain a bit. After dinner and couple of performances I can see people were getting chilly. The runway models cheered the crowd up but it was still windy and the temperature was dropping fast. He told me to talk to Metropolis (Night club) and continue the night over there. Imagine bringing the artists and the fashion show along with 500 guests to a night club which we didn't book beforehand. I thought it won't work but somehow that night ended with everyone satisfied with the food and the entertainment. They thought it was all organized.

4. Enjoys life

Last year he bought a BMW motorbike that looked like this. He rides it around and he told us he almost got into accident on his way to Inter-Bank FUT-ZAL tournament. It was rainy and I am sure the roads were slippery. Everyone know for the last 10 years he was the youngest CEO running a bank here in Mongolia. On a interview he said he always wanted a motorbike which made him purchase this beast. How many CEO's you see ride a motorcycle around in this crazy traffic.

To wrap it up, I didn't really get into his personality and how much of a good person he is because I don't have to. For us Mongolians we tend to judge people by "How much of a good person he/she is" well sorry I am not going to do that here. I don't know about you guys but I have a cool CEO.