Corporates and height

While large established corporates are quite explicit in specifying that only tall people will reach the higher management levels especially in western countries and India to a large extent, there are some exceptions. In these corporates shorter individuals are usually bypassed for promotions though they may be far better in terms of competence, work ethic and experience compared to a taller, better looking and more charming person,who is getting the promotion. A director of a company was telling his ex colleague, how shorter people were being overlooked mainly because of their height.

However in case of entrepreneurs till a few decades ago, height did not matter much in India. For example the Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal is not very tall. Probably the most famous short entrepreneur in the world is the Chinese founder of Alibaba,the Chinese trade portal, Jack Ma who is less than 5 feet 5 inch tall.

However increasingly the security and intelligence agencies in India are refusing to acknowledge an entrepreneur just because he or she is not very tall, which can be a waste of resources.