El-Erian Told to Chill by Monk Teaching Davos Meditation; “I don’t blame him” for resigning. That’s an impossible job. Those funds are just so big, you never get any sleep at night. It’s really hard to move the needle, and you’re constantly worried

January 26, 2014 Leave a comment

El-Erian Told to Chill by Monk Teaching Davos Meditation

Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard has a message for managers like Mohamed El-Erian, the Pacific Investment Management Co. chief executive officer who said this week he’s resigning: time to chill out.

El-Erian’s decision to quit shows how too many business leaders are pushing themselves to the breaking point, said Ricard, who’s leading early-morning meditation workshops at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“What’s the point if you don’t have a sense of the quality of the moment passing by?” asked Ricard, a French citizen who founded the Karuna-Shechen humanitarian association. “It doesn’t have to be blissing out under a mango tree, but some kind of joy.” Ricard’s been easy to spot in the cavernous Davos convention center this week, thanks to flowing robes of red and yellow fabric complemented by an Apple iPad.

Allianz SE (ALV), the parent of Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, this week said 55-year-old El-Erian would resign after six years at the firm. He was viewed by investors as the heir apparent to co-founder Bill Gross, who said he was “shocked” by El-Erian’s resignation to “recharge the batteries.”

The departure comes as the global financial elite gathered at Davos are urged by organizers to pay more attention to stress and mental health. An unprecedented 25 panels on health and wellness are planned throughout the week, including a seminar on meditation led by actress Goldie Hawn and sessions on the effects of constant technology use on the brain.

El-Erian won’t get the benefit of those sessions. He told Bloomberg Radio last year he avoids the 2,600-delegate event because he’d “rather read about Davos than be there and run around.” He declined to comment.

No Blame

“I don’t blame him” for resigning, said billionaire Denis O’Brien, chairman of Hamilton, Bermuda-based Digicel Group Ltd., the largest telecommunications company in the Caribbean. “That’s an impossible job. Those funds are just so big, you never get any sleep at night. It’s really hard to move the needle, and you’re constantly worried about things you can’t control.”

Gross, 69, is a fan of many of the de-stressing techniques being advocated in Davos. A devotee of yoga and meditation, Gross particularly enjoys standing on his head to clear his thoughts, he told the Washington Post (GHC) in 2008.

To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Campbell in Davos, Switzerland at mcampbell39@bloomberg.net; Jacqueline Simmons in Davos, Switzerland at jackiem@bloomberg.net

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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