In Their Own Words
Krish Kumar has been chief financial officer of the city of Durban, in South Africa, for 20 years. At the 2018 Sustainability Exchange he spoke with Lisa Da Silva of IFC about lessons from his career and what keeps him motivated.
Krish Kumar: It’s very fulfilling to see development taking place and the joy it brings particularly to people who have been disadvantaged. I have been at ceremonies where we hand over keys to people who’ve never had access to decent housing, where we’ve switched on taps, where we’ve switched on lights for people, where we’ve actually created job opportunities for people. This really motivates and inspires me.
Lisa: And how has Durban changed over the last 38 years, with you in the city administration? I mean, the city must have changed a lot.
Krish: Indeed. What’s really very exciting for me is the journey that we’ve come through in terms of democracy. We’ve seen a lot of legislation come in, we’ve seen the transformation that goes with a new era, and it’s been exciting.
Courtesy of Krish Kumar
Courtesy of Krish Kumar
Lisa: What is the most impactful experience that you’ve had in your job?
Krish: I really like to go out, it’s a learning experience for me. And what we take for granted, sitting in our so-called ivory tower, it makes such a difference when you go out there. And each time I’ve gone on site visits, whether it’s to a refuse dump site, a wastewater treatment plant, an aqueduct that we’ve just put in for hydroelectricity, it really makes me appreciate the other side of life, it just is such a wonderful experience to know the fruits of your labor are accounted for.
Local government is where the rubber hits the road, it’s where the action is. You are dealing with real people. There are 3.7 million people living in my city and each one does not enjoy the same quality of life. There’s a lot of inequality, there’s a lot of unemployment, and for me it’s my dream over the next two or three years that I may have left in my career to see a lot of the actual processes put in place to meet that.
— Krish Kumar, CFO, City of Durban
Lisa: What would Durban look like, in your ideal world, in two and a half or three years?
Krish: I’d like to see all of our issues around a smart city coming together. I hope that the plans we have in terms of creating a more dense, compact city with viable public transport come to life, all of our initiatives around the environment are also fulfilled, in terms of reducing refuse and how we recycle, the issue around the wastewater treatment plants and how we modernize that and make them more efficient, our green building programs. When I am in retirement and 20 years from now, I hope to see all these plants come to fruition and that we have far better air quality and that we can enjoy a longer life and that we reduce incidents of ill health. Lastly it’s about water. South Africa has been hit with a lot of drought, so for me it’s about managing water more carefully as a resource. I’d like to see a very productive city with reduced unemployment and an improved quality of life for all.
Lisa: Are there any life lessons that you’ve learned from your job?
Krish: When I started off work, I was a workaholic. In fact, when we got married – my wife keeps on reminding me – we never went on a honeymoon. Virtually the next day I was in the middle of doing a set of financial statements, back at work. But it’s taught me that you need to strike that balance in everything that we do. I think also the spiritual side of life has supported me, I’m very conscious that we need to deliver and give our best in everything that we do. If you ask my wife what she thinks about me, she’ll say that we’ve come a long way. I come from a faith that believes in reincarnation and she’d say she’ll probably be happy to spend the next birth with me.
Courtesy of Krish Kumar
Courtesy of Krish Kumar
Lisa: That’s a great aspiration. So where will you retire?
Krish: I give you one guess, Lisa.
Lisa: So you grew up in Durban, you worked in Durban, and you’ll retire in Durban?
Krish: Absolutely, it’s a lovely city. Every two years I go to a spiritual retreat up in the Himalayas, so I’d like to spend perhaps two or three weeks in the year there, but home will always be Durban.
Lisa: I love the spiritual element you bring to your work, it’s actually very inspiring for me because I relate to it.
Krish: Perhaps that’s why we get along so well.
Lisa: And maybe I’ll see you in the Himalayas.
Krish: Absolutely.
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