BT Big Story: Why India Inc is warming up to non-English-speaking executives

In high-stakes corporate leadership meetings, silence is often misconstrued as a lack of ideas or confidence. Executive presence coach Vikram recalls working with a senior business leader who remained quiet during crucial strategy discussions—not for lack of commercial insight, but because he was mentally translating his thoughts into English and trying to frame grammatically perfect sentences. By the time he was ready to speak, the conversation had moved on.

The coaching focused on shorter sentences, one clear point at a time and dropping the pursuit of perfect syntax. Once he stopped worrying about linguistic perfection, colleagues recognised the depth of his strategic thinking. As Vikram puts it: "People will forgive imperfect grammar. But they struggle to follow unclear thinking."

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Rohan Sethi (name changed on request), a senior HR leader with nearly two decades of corporate experience, describes a similar journey. Although he studied in an English-medium school, he grew up in a Hindi-speaking environment where English was rarely used in everyday conversation. “I found that English was not just a business language but, at times, a source of influence and confidence. I began consciously observing how senior leaders communicated and gradually worked on my own fluency.”

One challenge stood out: translating a thought into English in real time during group discussions. “A strong idea was lost simply because I was still framing it in my head while the conversation moved on.” His response was to strengthen the content of his communication, build deeper subject knowledge, speak more slowly and use pauses and body language to reinforce what he was saying.

Real-world evidence of executives succeeding despite unconventional language paths is beginning to surface across Corporate India. At Rassense Pvt Ltd, a food services and facility management company, Managing Director & CEO Sanjay Kumar points to real operational examples within his white-collar leadership team. A food and beverage controller in his early 30s routinely begins high-level corporate presentations in English before switching fluidly to Tamil, the language in which he can express his complex financial and operational insights best.

"We encourage him to communicate in the language he is most comfortable with," says Kumar. "There is always somebody who can translate, but nobody can replace the knowledge and passion he brings to the room. He has been promoted twice in the last three years. Capability takes precedence over language proficiency."

The question is becoming more urgent as Corporate India hires deeper into Tier-II and Tier-III cities: does English fluency determine leadership potential, or has it simply become a convenient proxy?

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Where English Matters

In white-collar corporate environments, English's role varies dramatically by an employee's career stage, functional responsibilities, and market focus.

At the entry level, English frequently acts as a filter during high-volume campus recruitment and initial screening.

Chetan Mangalwedhe, Founder & CEO of executive search firm TalentiFi-X, observes: "English still matters most at the gate. In the global capability centre (GCC) and product roles we fill, it is used to screen campus and junior candidates more than it is used to judge who can actually do the job."

Some founders are rethinking that bias. Kanan Bahl, founder of Fingrowth Media, interviewed a Tier-II candidate whose spoken English was poor, but whose technical sample was exceptional. Despite initial hesitation over client interaction, Bahl hired him, allowed him to work with clients in regional languages and later described him as his best hire.

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While many organisations still struggle to look past linguistic polish, a handful of forward-thinking major firms are actively decoupling core potential from spoken English.

"We are positive about the depth of skill, aspiration, and drive across Bharat, and we continue to broaden access to talent, reaching into Tier-II and -III centres," says Deepti Sagar, Chief People and Experience Officer at Deloitte India.

Sagar emphasises that language strategies must balance global client delivery with regional realities. Deloitte is an Indian organisation and part of a diverse global network. Professional working proficiency in English remains important for many roles that involve cross-border collaboration and client delivery. For them, proficiency in Indian languages is a valuable strength when working with clients, communities, policymakers, and institutions at the central, state, and local levels.

“Our hiring approach focuses first on the capabilities required for the role that include domain knowledge, learning agility, ambition, confidence, and alignment with Deloitte’s shared values rather than treating fluency in English as a proxy for competence potential,’ Sagar says.

This non-traditional focus is already yielding results. Sagar points to a colleague who grew up in rural Tripura with a modest agricultural background. Driven by pure grit, he built his credentials and joined Deloitte’s Bhubaneswar office. Today, he works in the firm's Cyber Defence and Resilience team in Mumbai and recently celebrated his first career promotion.

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Nathan SV, former Country Leader for PwC Acceleration Centres in India and Co-Founder of Vidwon Consulting LLP, notes that requirements vary by function. Sales, marketing and investor relations demand high English proficiency because of external client exposure, while technical functions such as software engineering, manufacturing, accounting and supply chain prioritise functional output over linguistic polish.

"If I can communicate what is on my mind, and English is not my strength, but my strength is accounting or technology or manufacturing, that does not hinder career progression in Indian firms," Nathan says. "Language is not a proxy for competence."

However, executive search experts note that the English barrier often reappears when mid-level managers try to cross into senior management, profit and loss (P&L) ownership, board interactions, and CXO roles.

"After someone has delivered for a year or two, accent and polish matter far less," explains Mangalwedhe. "The barrier comes back later, when the work turns into managing people, owning a P&L, talking to investors, or sitting in a CXO room with global stakeholders."

Toral Patel, Managing Partner at executive search firm Accord Group India, draws a crucial distinction between linguistic polish and strategic clarity.

"Accent should almost never matter. Vocabulary sophistication should rarely matter," Patel says. According to Patel, where language becomes a structural disadvantage is when a leader cannot articulate complex strategic choices, respond to investor concerns, negotiate cross-border acquisitions, or handle crisis communications where nuance matters. “At that point, the issue is not accent or polish, it is communication bandwidth versus stylistic skill."

Citing NASSCOM data, Mangalwedhe says over 60% of India’s engineering graduates now originate from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, which also host more than 220 GCC units. Yet senior CXO roles remain concentrated in Tier-I metros, where board-level and global stakeholder interactions still demand high English proficiency.

The B-School Reality

As business schools expand intake beyond metro cities, premier management institutes are acutely aware of the changing demographic and linguistic makeup of their classrooms. However, their experiences challenge several common assumptions regarding student struggles and remedial support.

At T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Director Debasis Pradhan clarifies that approximately 10% of incoming students come from vernacular-medium backgrounds, a proportion that has remained steady over the last five years. Pradhan says they arrive with strong analytical foundations.

"Do they struggle initially? Not really, as they also study English and are quite good," says Pradhan. “They may not be fluent in speaking. Nevertheless, they are extremely good in their written communication and critical thinking.”

TAPMI does not offer remedial English because students do not want to be singled out by medium of education, he says. English fluency, he adds, has not negatively affected classroom participation, internships or placements.

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At Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, Vivek Rajvanshi, a professor in Academic Group Finance and Control, sees language as a brief transition for students entering a rigorous B-school environment.

“Students from diverse geographical, educational and linguistic backgrounds join,” Rajvanshi explains. “The vocabulary of management education is different, and some students may initially be less comfortable with it. But after the first few weeks, students are generally able to manage easily. Language confidence matters, but what is more important is their intellectual capability.”

IIM Calcutta also uses voluntary pre-MBA bridge programmes and integrated business communication courses. Rajvanshi says peer learning is often more powerful than formal remedial classes because students pick up communication skills through group discussions.

At S.P. Jain School of Global Management, Umesh Kothari, Assistant Dean, notes a marked increase in students joining from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, enriching classroom diversity and peer perspectives across various management disciplines.

"Some students do face initial challenges, particularly with classroom participation, presentations, and professional communication in English," says Kothari. "However, these challenges are usually transitional rather than indicative of capability. Remedial English and communication support is offered on a need basis."

Regarding recruiter expectations, Kothari notes that while English remains essential for international clients and cross-border teams, corporate criteria are broadening significantly.

"In internships and placements, employers ultimately assess a broader set of capabilities including problem-solving, domain knowledge, teamwork, adaptability, and communication. As organisations expand into Tier-II and Tier-III markets, the ability to understand local contexts and communicate with diverse stakeholders is equally valuable," he says.

Is Bilingual MBA Realistic?

While Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s proposal for technology-enabled bilingual management education has sparked widespread debate, academics and corporate leaders emphasise that comparing India to non-English business powerhouses requires careful nuance.

Academics, however, point to practical challenges in implementing bilingual management education across India’s many linguistic regions. "TAPMI admitted students from 25 Indian states," points out Pradhan. "Offering management education in multiple regional languages creates significant logistical challenges and lacks economies of scale. Furthermore, we currently do not have the luxury of having world-class textbooks and papers developed by Indian academicians in regional languages."

Rajvanshi echoes the necessity of a common platform for national and international institutes: "Think about a national-level institution that is also an international-level institution. We have overseas students as well. The main communication is in English because otherwise it would be very difficult to bring all the students onto the same platform."

Instead of full bilingual degree tracks, educators advocate for informal bilingual support to ensure conceptual mastery, coupled with professional English training for workplace readiness.

Kothari explains that a strong bilingual model could use regional languages to explain complex foundational concepts while gradually building the English communication skills required in corporate and international environments. The objective should be accessibility without  compromising academic or professional readiness.

Patel of Accord Group India frames this dual approach as two distinct educational goals: a student could master complex financial concepts like discounted cash flow in Hindi or Tamil to ensure absolute conceptual depth, and subsequently learn how to explain those exact findings to an investor in London in clear English.

The AI Shift

The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered translation tools and real-time multilingual platforms is altering how companies manage communication and how educational institutions deliver content across regions.

At Rassense, employees recently requested internal tools with built-in translation to participate in meetings without language friction.

"The employees had no problem participating or expressing themselves. They simply wanted a tool that allowed them to respond in a language they were comfortable with," says Rassense’s Kumar. "If a platform cannot work easily with translation tools, perhaps it is the platform and the process that need to evolve rather than expecting every employee to adapt to one language."

In management education too, AI can translate course material into regional languages, lowering the friction of accessing complex subjects without restructuring degree tracks.

However, experts unanimously caution that while AI can remove reading and translation barriers, it cannot replace the core interpersonal attributes required for senior corporate leadership.

"AI does not replace the person who has to persuade, build trust, and make a decision in real time with global stakeholders. English will stop being the filter for many white-collar jobs as skills-based hiring and AI-enabled communication become more common. At the top, however, strong English communication will still remain an important leadership skill," says Mangalwedhe.

When organisations use polished English as an initial screen, they risk eliminating capable talent prematurely. “Talent in interior markets is often more stable and highly motivated,” notes Rassense’s Kumar. “Using English as the first screen means organisations never discover that capability.”

The challenge is not to abandon English, but to ensure it remains a practical business tool rather than an informal gatekeeper to leadership.