Plato and Chanakya were two great influential thinkers of their times from Greece and India respectively who had presented their models on leadership for ideal political governance. Plato outlines his thinking on leadership through a discourse on civic and political life in the “Republic”. Apart from defining justice, he sketched the nature of leadership in an ideal state.   On the other hand Plato’s contemporary in India, Chanakya delineated the principles of statecraft in the treatise titled “Arthashastra” that ensured sound governance.  Both, Plato’s ideology of Philosopher King (based on idealism) and Chanakya’s Rajrishi model (based on realism) visualized a utopian state that maximized social welfare which becomes highly relevant in the context of sustainable development. Their leadership models though on the face of it appear to have more relevance to managing the state. Though, many of their aspects offer meaningful insights to leading corporates in modern times have been remained untouched by scholars. This paper fills the gap and draws parallels and contrasts between the7 dimensions of the “Rajrishi” model of Chanakya and the “Philosopher King” model of Plato and highlights their relevance in modern times of managing global conglomerates. The paper applies the 3 C leadership framework to analyze both the leadership models based on Capability, Character, and Catalyst. This paper argues that Plato and Chanakya’s ideologies have influenced our thinking in the past and have great potential in shaping the governance of modern corporates through appropriate leadership practices.