Rakesh is 1976 alumnus from IT BHU. He did his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering, joined M. Tech for a few months & moved on to the Marketing Division of Indian Oil Corporation as his first work place. As per him, it was an interesting learning ground of the commercial world & he is still very much emotionally bonded to this great organization and the people. With over 16 years of working with IOC, Rakesh moved to Caltex (A JV of Chevron & Texaco) as a start up company in India and got some excellent international exposure in terms of market & way of working for almost 5 years. He then shifted to head another start up company Coastal Wärtsilä Petroleum, a JV of Coastal Corporation - US based Oil & Gas Company and Wärtsilä India, a Scandinavian OEM in the Marine & Power market from Finland. And after a few years he transitioned into the parent company – Wärtsilä to head its Service Business Unit in India; a business process for Middle East & South Asia Region & also company head of Wärtsilä Sri Lanka.
Starting from October 2006 Rakesh has shifted to the Wärtsilä Head Quarters in Helsinki. He now heads the global organization with responsibilities for Marketing and Sales of Power Plant products as well as market development activities and is also on the Board of the Power Plants business unit of Wärtsilä.
Rakesh gives credit to some basic principles which have made him reach wherever he is today & always try to communicate this experience to the youngsters, including his son & daughter for moving on in life . . .
- Be a genuine & unconditional giver and believe in people
- Love change, question status quo relentlessly & always strive for commonsensical innovation
- Believe in action . . . many thousands of years back Buddha said a profound thing . . . “World is devoid of many great things because of two reasons 1) Not starting & 2) Not finishing”
- Take care of the attitude & health with daily deliberate actions & be creative about building both of them day by day
- Have fun! One can either be happy or unhappy & it is a lot smarter to chose to be happy!!
In his free time Rakesh loves to have fun with family, work out, read inspirational books, write, play flute, practice / teach yoga & meditation. His most recently acquired passion is cooking!
Here is a snap of him & his family . . .
From right: Rakesh > Wife – Mani > Daughter – Shivi > Daughter in Law – Shruti > Son – Karan
The above news was provided by Ashok Srivastava (Mechanical 1976).