ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: August 2008 Interviews

Welcome to the ITBHU Chronicle, August 2008 Edition Interviews Section.

Interviews

Interview with Sridhar Manthani (Electronics 1982) Director of NVIDIA

Chronicle Editor @ Aug 25, 2008

Sridhar Manthani is one of our distinguished alumni involved in products in the PC industry. Currently he is Senior Director of NVIDIA graphics a company which is an Industry leader in Visual Computing Technologies. Mr. Manthani Sridhar has over two decades of experience in designing and marketing of hardware and software solutions for PC Graphics, CPUs and Multiprocessing.

While working at NVIDIA, Sridhar has been credited with starting the India Design Center focused on developing top-of-line motherboard chipsets. He is also actively involved in helping our institute in the form of recruitment, lecture and training to students and providing necessary equipment.

For Chronicle, Yogesh K. Upadhyaya discusses with Sridhar Manthani about his professional achievement and his thoughts about alumni related activities:

Q-1: Please tell us more about your professional career path.

I was born in Hyderabad. After studying B. Tech. (Electronics Engineering) from IT-BHU, I did my MS (Electronics Engineering) from University of Iowa.

After my Masters, I joined Intel as an ASIC design engineer and was working on Microprocessor chips. I left Intel after 4 years and was part of the original team in a startup called S3. At that time Microsoft Windows was just coming on to PCs and S3 was formed to accelerate the Windows on PCs. Our first product arguably the world first Windows accelerator ended up improving the Windows experience on PCs dramatically The product was widely accepted and we were shipping to all PC manufacturers. Later, I became the Vice President of Engineering for S3 and grew my business unit to $500M revenues. The Company went IPO in 1993 and became an industry leader. Later I left the company and came back to Bangalore mostly for family reasons. This was in 1997. Myself and a friend started a company called Thinkit Technologies, Inc. doing ASICs for the networking Industry. It was an interesting and challenging experience to start a business in India. We had to hire and train every engineer as what we were doing was fairly new in India.

This product interested Intel which wanted to get into Networking to extend their dominance in the PC space.. Intel acquired the company in year 2000. I left Intel in 2003 and joined Nvidia as they were looking for someone to lead their entry into India.

Q-2: What are major challenges being faced in developing graphics solutions? How NVIDIA has been able to rise to the top position in the specialized field?

Graphics is a very specialized domain, but it uses basic computer architecture techniques. Nvidia is focused on Visual Computing and it provides continuous learning opportunities. Since what we do are visual products, the expectations from the market are very high. Every architecture has to improve the performance by at least 2 fold to make a difference. The challenges are how to achieve good performance with low power consumption while keeping the product costs reasonable.

Q-3: What is the future of visual computing / VLSI industry? How can be it a good career option for engineers?

Visual computing is a natural interface in dealing with machines. It is widely used in all areas including movie industry, design of cars and creating many new products in all Industrial domains.. Beyond that, the architectures good for Visual Computing can improve some complex computing bottlenecks like Protein Folding, Molecular Dynamics.

The computing model over the next few years will change and will evolve towards architectures which did graphics well using massive parallelism.

In addition Nano-Technology and Energy industries will drive the growth in VLSI technologies.

Q-4: How can alumni help the institute?

We already have an extremely impressive campus. We need to improve institute facilities and infrastructure to attract good professors to ITBHU. Beyond that, we need to improve facilities for students. An example would be to build a good student activity center. I like to focus on these two areas which make ITBHU an attractive destination for professors and students. One should be proud to teach or study in that institute.

Q-5: We would like to about your personal life.

My wife Madhavi is a masters in computer science who worked for the first five years. Now she is a serious golfer with a handicap of 7.

My daughter Mayura is in 12^th grade and seems interested in Biology/Life Sciences. My son Rogan is in 11^th grade has varied and ever changing interests.

I play tennis twice a week whenever I am not traveling. Generally I like to spend outdoors being physically active.

Q-6: Thank you, Sir. Thanks for spending valuable time for the interview.

Sridhar Manthani can be contacted at: smanthani[AT]nvidia.com

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Additional Links:

Nvidia C55: Made in India

http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Nvidia_C55_Made_in_India/551-77364-581.html

Boom time for India's chip designers

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/12/10/stories/2006121001901300.htm

Shoot to Kill-NVIDIA Company of the year in Forbe’s list of 2008

http://www.forbes.com/technology/forbes/2008/0107/092.html






Complete List
Company Of The Year
NVIDIA
By Industry
Median EPS Growth
Median Sales Growth
Video
Nvidia's Graphic World

NVIDIA home page

http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html

NVIDIA India

http://www.nvidia.co.in/page/home.html

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Interview with Biplav Misra (Metallurgy 2002) co-founder of IndusMinds.com

Chronicle Editor @ Aug 25, 2008

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Biplav Misra has co-founded a unique company to help MBA aspirants to apply for MBA to leading international management schools in USA, Europe and Asia. After briefly working with Infosys in Asia and Europe, he joined UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2006.

Being a star performance in the MBA program, he had the opportunity to closely watch the MBA admission process, which is sometimes confusing or intimidating to many candidates. To help such candidates, he started a venture called IndusMinds (http://www.indusminds.com/biz/). The company advises applicants on the successful requirements for applying to MBA schools.

For Chronicle, Yogesh K. Upadhyaya discusses with Biplav Misra about the selection process for management schools. We hope the information will be useful to candidates hoping to pursue management degrees abroad.

Q-1: Please provide background about the company and how it was started.

Like thousands of other applicants, we underwent the MBA application process couple of years back vying for limited seats in top MBA programs. The whole process was confusing at best and there were times when we were totally lost for direction. This was probably the first time when we underwent serious contemplation about issues which we never did earlier such as:

Why did we want to do an MBA?
What short-term and long-term career plans did we have and how did we plan to achieve them?
Instances where we demonstrated leadership skills?

I believe that my student leadership activities while at ITBHU helped me craft strong and cohesive essays which led to admits from schools in US, Canada and Asia (all came with scholarships). I joined UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2006 where I received the highest Anderson Fellowship award of $40,000 for being adjudged one of the best applicant among the thousands applicants. During my MBA, I received more than a dozen applications for review from students whom I hardly knew. Almost all of them got admit from the top schools of their choice and three of them also received fellowship awards from their schools. These students as well as my interest in helping ambitious and deserving Indian students to pursue their dreams motivated me to start this service.

We conceptualized the vision of a service geared towards helping aspiring Indian students more than a year back and have been guiding Indian students on a pro-bono basis over this period but we triggered the registration process for the company IndusMinds about a month back with its base office in Mumbai. We have plans to catapult this service into a full-blown venture in couple of years and hence the decision to register the company in India. All our team members are MBA graduates or students from top Business schools in US, Canada and Europe. I am also pleased to inform you that one of our team members Nikhil Bhatia (MBA, UCLA Anderson) is also an alumnus of ITBHU (Electrical -2002). The team is truly global in nature and our consultants are based in California, Toronto, Spain and India which enables us to provide quick turnaround time for our services.

Q-2: What types of services are provided by your organization? What are the profiles of candidates applying to MBA you came across?

IndusMinds provides consulting services in all aspects of preparing a strong application package which includes guiding students to:

Select schools based on their background and post-MBA career plans.
Prepare a professional Business School Resume
Prepare Essays that present a holistic candidacy.
Draft strategies for getting strong recommendations.
Prepare for business school interviews.

IndusMinds does not write essays for any student since this is not only unethical but also prevents students from presenting their stories in their own words.

An MBA student can come from any field and the class is not dominated by engineers. I had classmates who had varied profiles such as:

Ex-Navy Seal in US army
Hollywood actress
Management consultants / Investment Bankers
Entrepreneurs
Olympic Athlete
Professional from Social service background
Professional golf player

The most common profile of Indian applicants is that of an IT consultant from companies like Infosys, TCS, IBM, etc. They mostly apply to top 30 schools in USA, top 10 schools in Europe and to IIM/ ISB in India. Since IndusMinds is truly global in terms of the team, we guide students for applications to business schools all across the globe.

Q-3: What is the process for applying for MBA to US colleges? What are the parameters they are looking for?

The MBA application to global MBA programs such as in North America, Europe and Asia is a 15-18 month long process. The first step is generally to take the GMAT and aim for a decent score (preferably above 700 for Indian applicants). This is followed by school selection and then preparing the application package. Most schools require non-native English speakers to appear for TOEFL so it is highly recommended to have a TOEFL score handy as well.

Preparing an application (writing compelling essays, drafting a professional resume) is a very time consuming and exhaustive process. Students take about 1-3 months to complete the application package for one school.

MBA schools look at a variety of aspects such as a student’s academic excellence, leadership skills, extracurricular activities, GMAT score and finally the Application Package. Most schools also like to conduct interviews to a get a feel for the student’s personality and motivation. They want to know if someone has the potential to be a successful leader in the corporate culture after graduating from the MBA program.

Past academic performance and GMAT scores are things that cannot be changed. So that leaves an applicant with only the essays, resume and the interview. To differentiate an MBA aspirant from a large pool of other applicants, it is necessary to focus on the essays. The essays should complement the resume to strategically highlight different skills and experiences to project a comprehensive picture about the applicant. The interview should strengthen the attributes the applicant has described in his / her application. In the end, the admissions committee should visualize the applicant as a person who has the mettle to succeed in the corporate culture as a future manager.

The cost varies depending on the geography and the duration of the program. For a two-year full time MBA program the average cost can vary from $100,000- $125,000 (inclusive of fees and living expenses). For a one year program the cost is usually $75,000- $90,000. These are just average figures and will vary depending on your life style.

Q-4: What are the common mistakes made by candidates while applying? How will your service be helpful to them in improving their chances for selection?

Some of the common mistakes that applicants make are:

Undermine the importance of essays and focus just on good GMAT score. 700+ score are very common for an Indian applicant and this is probably the most competitive pool.
Focus on technical skills in their essays. It’s good to know that you are a software geek but that doesn’t qualify you for a managerial role.
Not connecting the dots. Everything from your undergraduate, corporate experience, MBA and short-term and long-term career goals are small parts of your holistic picture. I find students lacking the skills to smoothly connect these dots.
Networking. Talk to as many people as possible and get as many views on your application as possible. For instance ITBHUGlobal has a forum for MBA (Abroad) where I have been an active member like few other MBA candidates. Utilize that to post your queries and get the feedback from people who have been through the process.
Selecting school purely based on some ranking. The rankings are based on certain criteria which is unique to the company generating the rankings. As an applicant you should focus on what you want to do after MBA and then select schools which can help you achieve those goals.

IndusMinds helps students select the right school and then works with them to devise a positioning which strengthens their candidacy for the schools of their choice.

Q-5: What are the differences between management schools in US and India about screening process for candidates to MBA programs?

The Indian B-schools (such as IIMs) place a great deal of emphasis on exams (CAT, GD and interviews). Being a top performer in IIMs can open doors to lucrative offers which is unlike the schools in the West. Networking and soft-skills play a very important role at US B-schools hence the emphasis on knowing you more as a person. Moreover every school in USA (and Europe) has a different specialty so they look for students who display an enthusiasm for their philosophy. As an example, UCLA is renowned for entrepreneurship so if you plan to be an entrepreneur then UCLA might be the best school for you. Just make sure that this message is loud and clear in your application as well.

ISB follows a similar format as US B-schools and pays attention to essays which present a true picture of your candidature as a future manager or corporate leader. Of course, GMAT scores are important as they are a proof that as a student you can survive the analytical vigor of the MBA program.

Q-6: Please provide brief profile of you and your team members.

I graduated from ITBHU in Metallurgical Engineering in 2002. The engineering days were the forming years of my life where I was very active in student leadership as Secretary of Literary Activities, Managing Editor of Reverberations, and Media Coordinator of National Youth Festival etc. The literary side of my undergrad years has been really helpful when I applied to business schools. I started my corporate career at Infosys where I worked in Pune and Bangalore. In 2004 I moved to Belgium as an onsite coordinator which opened doors to new roles and responsibilities. Witnessing the business battlefield closely I realized that I still needed more skills to efficiently solve a business problem (not an IT problem) which triggered my MBA journey. UCLA Anderson has been an enriching journey where I graduated in top 15% of the class as a member of the Anderson Honor Society. Just like ITBHU days, I have been active in student leadership such as VP-High Tech Business Association, Executive Board member of IS Associates etc and MDE-Fellow.

During his days at IT-BHU, Nikhil Bhatia was active in sports activities, having represented the college in Basketball and Squash. He was the Vice-Captain of the IT-BHU Basketball team in 2001-02 and a member for all 4 years of college. He was also part of the core organizing committee for IT-BHU’s Sports Festival – Spardha. Nikhil started his career with HCL Technologies in Gurgaon and in 2005; he was posted on a client project in the US as an IT Consultant. It was during his 1.5 years in the US that he applied and got accepted to UCLA Anderson School of Management. During his MBA, Nikhil has been active in various leadership roles such as President – South Asian Business Association, Management Development for Entrepreneurs (MDE) Fellow (a program that pairs MBA students with Entrepreneurs in the US to solve their business problems) and Vistage (a network of successful CEO’s in the US).

Q-7: Biplav, thanks for your valuable information. We hope it will be useful for candidates seeking admissions to reputed management schools abroad.

Thanks Yogesh. I want to reiterate that hundreds of our alumni have made it to the top B-schools and they had similar profile as someone reading this interview. They just came out of their comfort zone and strived for success.

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Additional links:

Indus Minds

http://www.indusminds.com/biz/

UCLA Anderson School of Management

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/

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Arun Tangri (CSE 2006) for Sankalp Foundation

Chronicle Editor @ Aug 25, 2008

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Arun Tangri CSE 2006

Q-1: Please provide background info about Sankalp Foundation

I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that every individual has done some charity in one form or the other in his or her lifetime. And it doesn’t matter how big or small is that help till the time it serves its purpose.

The idea of Sankalp Foundation started long back in 2007 when some friends of mine and I had a discussion about the great economic divide that exists in the society. On one hand was a society that spends thousands of rupees per night in the name of amusement and on the other was the one that doesn’t even know how it will buy the next meal. We didn’t know what we could do to address this.

Though the discussion was over but its impact was far from over and every time when we saw a child begging for a rupee at a traffic signal, the feeling to do something to help them grew stronger. Initially we started giving them money, food, clothes, etc., but then we realized that we weren’t hitting the root cause of the problem, illiteracy. We realized that even though we help them get some food for a day, it won’t help them earn food for the rest of their lives. So we needed to do something which will help them to stand on their own feet. Sankalp was born.

Since it was our resolution to help the society, we named our group as Sankalp. Naming the society serves two purposes:

i. It helps anyone to remember the society and so the effect is long lasting.

ii. It helps the volunteer to feel attached with the cause.

We spent our initial days, November 2007, to address few issues such as deciding the target audience, modus of operandi, increasing the volunteer base etc. As our group was very small and we weren’t sure on how successful can this initiative be, we decided to start on a very small scale. The idea was to support the children whose parents couldn’t support their education and so the students were on the verge of dropping out of school.

To start with, we contacted the authorities of Swathi High School, a school based in Hyderabad and explained them our stand. It’s always hard to gain the trust of people when you have just started. Even though they had many apprehensions like how long can we sustain our society, how regular will our support be, etc. But, finally, they agreed to help us in our cause and we are thankful to them to give us a breakthrough. We started with around 5 students and created their profiles and a template of the kind of support they needed and published it in our blog (http://sankalp-scholarships.blogspot.com). Then we spread this word in our respective companies and neighbours and asked people to contribute for the cause and thus to create a society which bridges the gap between the donors and the receivers.

We continued with finding donors for the selected students. This increased our interaction with the school and the students. This interaction brought to light the fact that quality education in important to alleviate the problem. Giving financial assistance, though utmost necessary, is not the only thing required. As the students could not afford to go to the best schools in town, they lacked the “quality” education. This in-turn would make them weak in the job market. So we decided to address this issue head-on. From February 2008, we started conducting workshops where we tried to impart value addition to the education they were receiving. Currently we are conducting workshops on every Saturday in three schools. The workshops are on Communication Skills and Math. In one of the schools we are counseling the so-called slow learners

After a successful 7 months of operation, we decided to increase the scope of our organisation and thought to make it a registered society. And so, Sankalp Foundation, on June 16^th, 2008, became a registered society under the Andhra Pradesh Society Registration Act. 2001 (http://www.sankalpfoundation.org/DSC03402.JPG). With Sankalp Foundation getting registered, our scope has increased tremendously and we now support the education of around 25 students across three schools in Hyderabad.

I hope that with all these efforts, we’ll be able to bring some difference in the society by laying the foundation stone in the success of the needy ones.

Sankalp Website:

http://www.sankalpfoundation.org

Q-2: What is the organizational set up?

There are around twenty five members in Sankalp Foundation but the core committee consists of seven. One of my childhood friends from Delhi, Saurabh Bhardwaj is the President of the organization. He is a graduate of Delhi College of Engineering and is currently working with Motorola Hyderabad. I am among the founder member of the organization and currently working as the Joint Secretary. Following is the list of the core committee:

President – Saurabh Bhardwaj

Vice President – Ms. Anitha Gade

General Secretary – Prashant Mehta

Joint Secretary – Arun Tangri

Treasurer – Krishna Kumar Yadav

Exec members – Vishwanath, Raj Kiran, etc.

Q-3: What are different activities of your organization?

Apart from the arranging for the donation, we conduct a series of workshops with the topics ranging from the core academic subjects like English and Mathematics to some non-conventional subjects like anti-smoking etc. This helps to keep the students moral high and also helps to build a stronger relationship amongst them. Following are the activities that we conduct on the regular basis:

Academic Workshops: This is a series of workshop in Maths and English. We also conduct the career-counseling workshop for the so-called slow learners.
General Awareness: This consists of such topics as anti-smoking, health awareness etc.
Competitions – On some special occasions, we conduct a series of competition. Recently we conducted an essay writing competition on the occasion of the 61^st Independence Day of India at all the three schools.

Q-4: What is your funding requirement?

The administrative cost of the society is borne by the members. The funds which we get are exclusively used for sponsoring needy children.

The number of students currently supported by Sankalp Foundation is around 25. With an average of Rs. 250 per month per student, the amount required to sponsor just their school fees comes out to be around Rs. 75,000 per year exclusive of the other help on stationary and other things. Apart from this, some funds are needed to conduct the workshops and competitions also. So, a total of around Rs. 1 Lakh per annum is needed to support all the students with their requirement and other activities.

Starting next month, we plan to adopt a model of “1 child per volunteer” in which each volunteer will take the ownership of the donations for 1 child supported by Sankalp Foundation. This will help us streamline the efforts as the volunteer will sponsor the fees of the child he / she support in case if the necessary funding isn’t available.

If you are interested in sponsoring a child, you can do so either by clicking on the following link http://www.sankalpfoundation.org/contactus and sending us a mail or by contacting me at Arun [Dot] Tangri [At] Gmail [Dot] Com.

Q-5: How the volunteer work is distributed among teams?

As I mentioned earlier, there are around 25 volunteers currently associated with Sankalp Foundation. Since this is purely a voluntary activity and all the volunteers are working in some organization, it becomes difficult to take the time out in the normal weekday schedule. Hence, the majority of the work or workshops are done on the weekends.

We have divided our team into sub-teams and each one of them has their own responsibilities. For example, a sub-team takes care of the workshops; another sub-team works as the interface of Sankalp Foundation to the school authorities and the donors and is responsible to create the profiles of the students also and so on. We keep regular meetings to update everyone about the current status and future plans about the organisation.

Q-6: Please tell us briefly about you

My name is Arun Tangri and I did my initial schooling from New Delhi. I was brought up in a nuclear family. I did my B. Tech. from the department of Computer Science and Engineering in the year 2006. Currently I am working with Microsoft India RnD Pvt. Ltd. for the last two years. I am a big fan of all kinds of sports and love to visit different places and meet different people.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank The Chronicle team to provide the platform to share the little work we are doing in our life with the rest of the ITBHU family.

Arun Tangri can be contacted at: arun.tangri@gmail.com

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Additional Link

1) Sankalp Foundation

http://www.sankalpfoundation.org

Anti-Smoking Workshop

essay writing.jpg

Essay Writing Competition

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Shiv Shankar Kedia (Mechanical 1975) working with Surlin Consultants for recruitment, training and web services

Chronicle Editor @ Aug 25, 2008

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The franchise of Surlin.com at Jaipur is owned by our alumnus, S. S. Kedia. He can be contacted at: ersskedia@gmail.com

He answers questions by Chronicle about his franchise venture with Surlin:

Q-1: Please tell us about the company.

The principals (Surlin) are Bangalore based. I have entered in to the franchise arrangement from April '08. The office is located at a prominent commercial location of Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. The company's basic strengths are in IT/ITES but not limited to it. The company profile shown below will give complete information about the area of operations. We are into HR, Training and Consultancy operating as stand-alone and/or in combination. Jaipur branch is a recent start-up but the parent company’s track record is very good as can be viewed from the profile. As far as working is concerned - it is a team-work, we sign-up with clients and as per their requirements any-branch or Head Office can work on the assignment under advice of HO and depending on the strength of the Branch. We have access to most of the job portals in addition to internal resources; e.g Jaipur has almost 50 private Engineering Colleges and looking to the latest trends in Education in Rajasthan - viz - Jaipur/Kota/Jodhpur/Ajmer/Udaipur there is a huge pool of technical talent available, most suitable for Campus recruitments. A number of top Indian companies are already doing substantial campus recruitment from Jaipur. The hiring process is also very flexible and can be designed to suit the client’s requirements.

Q-2: Please tell us more about Surlin.

Surlin is India's second largest spread recruitment chain with 30 plus offices spread across the country and also the nation's largest call center /BPO training academy. Headquartered in the garden city and IT hub of India, Bangalore, Surlin also operates in UK, Canada, USA, Germany, Australia, Thailand, Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Mauritius. Surlin's main businesses are permanent and temporary (contract) hiring of staff, corporate and retail training, Software services and consulting services. Surlin Solutions is currently providing the following services:

Retail training: The retail call centre training division caters to the training needs of graduates and undergraduates, either fresher or with experience in some other field. These candidates get trained on English, Interview skills, Presentation skills etc which are required for call centre/BPO interviews.

Corporate training: This division caters to the needs of corporate (call centers, software firms, banks, travel, leisure, Airline and Shipping Industry, Manufacturing, Marketing firms) etc.

Recruitments: The recruitment division caters to various sectors such as IT, ITES, BFSI, FMCG, Retail, Manufacturing, Health and also Overseas recruitments. We deal with the entire spectrum starting from Entry level, Middle management up to Senior levels.

Campus recruitments and training: We are authorized by certain clients to conduct campus recruitments in colleges, universities and institutions across the nation. We are also into providing retail Software and Call center training in colleges.

Consultancy services: We are also into ITES consulting and we provide projects for start-ups as well as established call centers/ BPOs. We also provide all the information required for a new start-up. We can take care of the hardware requirements, entry level HR requirements, pre-process training, process training, infrastructure set-up, middle level and managerial recruitments.

http://www.surlin.com/surlin/contactus.html

Our clients, among others, include - IBM, Accenture, EDS, Mphasis, Dell, Siemens, Google, Timken, Caterpillar, Webex, HSBC, IL &FS etc.

We have Surlin's Job Portal where all our current requirements with various Clients are listed.

Our Corporate training division caters to a wide area of training requirements like Accent Training (Neutral, US & UK), Sales Skills, Soft Skills training, Personality development workshops, Customer acquisition & retention, Team building exercises, Performance improvement workshops, Organizational Development Initiatives, Technical Corporate training for IT & Networking firms etc.

We are tied up with different Training Associates who are specialized in specific fields of work.

Our Realty Division Caters to Commercial Properties and Office Spaces.

Q-3: How is your company/franchise useful both to the hiring companies as well as to the candidates for job search?

The Companies team, network and methodologies combined with the experience in diverse fields, commitment to professional practices and quality work, flexibility to adept as per client's requirements are some of the strengths useful to hiring companies. As to the candidate: we don't charge anything from the candidate. Our total commitment is towards the client, so we go for the best candidate and the goodwill thus earned from the clients helps the candidate. Because of the credibility the success rate for candidate is also high.

Q-4: What type of candidates are you looking for? How one should contact you?

We will be interested in candidate in engineering/management/techno-commercial/commercial fields at all levels of education and experience. The contact details are:

Company's web site: www.surlin.com

My personal business-mail-id: kedia@surlin.com

Jaipur Branch id: surlinjpr@surlin.com

In addition to this all other contact mediums are available on request – viz. - Telephone, Cell etc.

Q-5: Please tell us about your professional background

Born in Yangon, Myanmar in a business family, I had very disturbed schooling spread across Myanmar and many states of India - missing class 4 to 6 both inclusive. Finally I found a footing in IT-BHU and completed B. Tech. in 1975 and M. Tech. (Machine Design) in 1977 at the age of 23 yrs; both the degrees in Mechanical Engineering. I was one of the first persons to work in bio-medical engineering field at IT-BHU at the Post-graduate level. Then I did a one year part time DBM (Diploma in Business Management) from a lesser known college of Bombay in 1980. Owing to family business back-ground, I was destined to enter own/family business, even before entering college.

Thus instead of pursuing a corporate career, most of my career assignments were connected with own/family business in some way or the other. I started my career with REMI Group, Mumbai-(1978-80); then Gyrox Gears Pvt., Ltd., Ahmedabad (1982-1984), Techno Centre (India) Pvt., Ltd., Jaipur, (1984-1986). All other periods in-between and after were connected with own/family business - mining, construction, textiles, trading, manufacturing etc. This has given me a wide exposure across fields and levels. At the moment the family owned businesses have combined turn-over of Rs.500 crore plus, with which I have some connection or the other. Two of my brother's are leading professionals in their field - one a surgeon and other a CA, this also gives access to resources in specialties diverse than my own back-ground.

There are many contradictions in my back-ground. Even though had a very broken schooling, I still managed to complete my degree without the loss of even a year. ITBHU turned me into a person beyond anyone's wildest imaginations - a good Engineer and a Better Human being, thinker. It is so much so that at the moment, I am a man with very strong opinions and partly anti establishment. My professional career is full of adventures and misadventures across diverse fields, but I had the good fortune of coming in contact with professionals at all levels including peers. From college days a very private person with a very strong but small group of good friends across branches which holds good even today. Most of the working life has been spent in family/own businesses. Now because of Joint family complexities I have decided to have a set-up of my own and thus the new venture.

The reason to choose this particular field is that I want to share the experience with the young generation and do some thing worth while. I also foresee a great future in the HR and Education arena. Like in other fields, due to opening up of the economy, here also the growth is spectacular. To encash the opportunity people are after making a fast buck. There is a scope for good quality and professional work. The principals are good, their intentions are good and what I'm trying to establish is provide a link where people across all age groups can relate freely, both on the candidate side and the client side.

I'll also like to get in touch with Alumni working in the same field so that we can share resources/ideas/experiences.

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Additional links: