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We are pleased to publish interview with Mr. Ganesh Rengaswamy, who has been appointed as India Country Director and the newest member of global senior management team for Unitus, an international organization that provides innovative solutions to global poverty by enabling scalable and sustainable models in microfinance and related social sectors.

With MBA from Harvard Business School, Mr. Ganesh has more than a decade of experience in executing firm-level strategies and undertaking independent revenue and growth initiatives for investing firms, Fortune 1000 clients, start-ups, and high-growth companies. He has global experience in venture capital, growth investing, and entrepreneurial and operating roles across consumer technology, financial services, internet/mobile, and retail IT services.

Prior to joining Unitus in 2009, Ganesh was a co-founder of Travelguru.com—the online travel leader in hotels and vacations in India and South Asia— and launched India Investments for Greylock Partners, one of the oldest top-tier venture capital firms in the US.

Mr. Rengaswamy maintains the tie with the alma-mater and he recently visited our campus (in February 2009) for Business plan contest judging and to talk to the students about entrepreneurship.

Yogesh K. Upadhyaya from Chronicle interviews him for his leadership role in providing microfinance to need people in India and other parts of the world:

 (Ganesh Rengaswamy)

To view his profile, please visit: http://www.unitus.com/about-us/management-team/ganesh-rengaswamy

Q-1: Welcome, Sir. Please introduce yourself to our readers.

As you probably guessed from my name, I am from South India but grew up in Kolkata and lived in Delhi, Ambala, Varanasi, Mumbai and Bangalore before moving to California, which is where I was till I moved back to Bangalore in 2008. I am often challenged when people ask me where in India I am from – the most practical answer for me has been I am Indian.

My mother was a Math Teacher and my father was with Aditya Birla Group. I studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kolkata before going to BHU. My class (Chemical 1996) utilized the Basketball court (BBC) to the fullest by burning the “midnight oil” to play cricket.

My biggest learning about entrepreneurship is that it’s not about who takes the biggest risk but who manages risk the best. Entrepreneurship is a mix of conviction, perseverance, vision, luck and compromises – lots of them. So, when you embark on an entrepreneurial venture make sure that it fires you up enough to withstand the failures along the way and compromises.

Q-2: Please tell us about your profession career.

My career hasn’t been as planned as it seems. I graduated from IT-BHU top of my class with the BHU medal. Out of BHU, I went to Indian Oil Corporation and realized within a few months that it wasn’t for me – I loved the field experience though and would never forget the day our marketing installation caught fire. I also started investing in public markets as a hobby and it turned into something more serious down the line. After IIM-Calcutta, I started with Infosys in 1999 and soon moved to Silicon Valley in Northern California across various roles including managing clients, business development and program management.

In 2003, I got more drawn towards entrepreneurship (failed attempt) and venture investing and decided to go to HBS (Harvard Business School), which is considered the bastion for both. Starting Travelguru at HBS along with my partner was totally coincidental and culmination of one midnight conversation. After Travelguru, I was a venture capitalist between India and Silicon Valley and finally transitioned to Unitus to focus more on social enterprises and entrepreneurship.

Q-3: What is microfinance?

Put simply, microfinance is just what it sounds like – financial services for the poor, which at the outset originates in the form of very small loans to individuals running very small enterprises.  Often times, banks and other large financial services institutions overlook servicing the very poor for many reasons including lack of collateral, perception of being high-risk borrowers or the belief that loaning to this clientele isn’t profitable.  Microfinance institutions (small banking organizations that serve the poor, often called MFIs) cater to the needs of the “bottom of the pyramid” and over the past several decades have proven to be an effective tool in poverty alleviation as well as a sound financial practice since worldwide repayment rates are upwards of 95%.  In addition, access to microfinance helps create economic stability, improve healthcare and housing, provide educational opportunities for their children and, ultimately, realize economic self-sufficiency.      

Unitus focuses on partnering with microfinance institutions to achieve what we call “high-impact” microfinance, where the financial resources are accompanied by a range of client-supporting products and services such as, savings programs, and basic insurance plans.  For example, we currently work with 14 partners in India (reaching over 6.5 million clients) and depending on their specific needs, we provide them with business consulting or capital in the form of grants with the express purpose of removing their barriers to growth so they can reach more of their region’s poor.

Q-4: How does Unitus operates around the world? How do people get benefited from microfinance through Unitus?

Well, expanding on the previous example, Unitus partners with high-potential MFI partners in high-need regions – currently North, central and North-east India ( we have built mature partnerships in South India over years), East Africa and parts of Latin America – where microfinance has promise but is struggling to grow.  We help our partners to develop a broad range of financial products tailored to varied client needs that, along with other business support services, should ultimately increase income, mitigate risk and enhance the livelihoods of their clients.  Furthermore, we are strong believers that for these types of programs to be as effective as possible, our partners need to be positioned for long term sustainability.  Thus, we work with them to combine commercial capital with solid business practices such as growth planning, capacity building and to optimize operational efficiency so that they can continue to serve their communities and promote positive social change over time.

As for impact, looking strictly at the numbers, when we first started working in India in 2003 approximately 13.6 million people had access to microfinance. Today, that number has grown to over 70 million with one out of every 6-7 borrowers served by a Unitus partner. Also, we’ve helped attract capital to this market from less than $5 million in 2003 to more than $100 million in private investments today.  Microfinance in India has indeed come a long way.

However, the social impact of microfinance has not consistently been measured.  While we have seen countless lives improved, as a sector, we have not been consistent about measuring specific improvements as a direct result of a microfinance loan. For instance, did the borrowers housing improve or was their food source better after their loan?  In the industry, tracking effectiveness and making strategic changes based on analysis is called Social Performance Management or SPM.  Trying to overcome that the lack of knowledge around effectiveness, Unitus is doing some groundbreaking work in increasing Social Performance Management and we expect this to be our focus in the next few years

Q-5: Please describe your college days

This is a really tough one for me and it’s hard to be truthful and unbiased across IT-BHU, IIM and HBS. IT-BHU was easily the most carefree of all and our midnight cricket matches at BBC must have generously contributes to the energy bills of the Institute. I realized on my recent trip to Banaras that not much has changed in Lanka and Gadolia except for the malls that have come up – apparently that’s where students watch movies nowadays compared to the local theatres we used to fight it out at. The engineering days certainly go a long way and we had tighter sub-groups within my class that carried over to my days in the US as well.

IIM was in some ways an extension of IT-BHU given 85% + folks were engineers. But it was different in ways that it was a 20 month program and the class size was much bigger.

Harvard Business School was a fantastic experience and the extent of personality transformation is amazing. The class is largest of any B-school in the world (850-900) but split into 10 sections in the first year and fairly personalized. The faculty includes ex-CXOs and industry leaders from some of the biggest corporation in the world. I was straddling three worlds–as a student, entrepreneur and President of South Asia Business Association–at HBS, and enjoyed every bit of it.

Q-6: Please tell us about your personal life

My parents recently moved to Mumbai few years back post retirement. My brother lives in California and I am in Bangalore (along with my wife, Kavitha). Cricket, Reading, Table Tennis and Traveling would all find a place in my ideal life.

I have been influenced by many incidents and people all through my life. My parents, of course taught me the value of hard work, honesty, excellence and integrity. My inspirations include Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Warren Buffett.

Sir, it was nice talking to you.

Thanks so much for interviewing me – the pleasure is mine. I would like to leave the readers with a parting thought.

I am an active proponent of entrepreneurship and social impact across multiple forums around the country. Unitus is actively involved in social entrepreneurship themes with “finances of poor” as the core and several adjacent sectors. We would welcome initiatives or volunteers from alumni and students to bolster our efforts in bridging this global economic and social divide.

 G. Rengaswamy can be contacted at: grengaswamy@unitus.com 

(Chronicle appreciates help from Elyse Rowe and Eliza Kelly for this interview and for forwarding photos.)

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Education of Ganesh Rengaswamy

*B. Tech, Chemical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU), Varanasi in 1996

* Post Graduate Diploma in Finance & System Strategy from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta in 1999

* MBA in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital, Harvard Business School in 2006

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 Additional Link:

1) About Unitus

http://www.unitus.com/

2) Unitus Mission (from the website)

Unitus, an international nonprofit organization, fights global poverty by accelerating the growth of microfinance—small loans and other financial tools for self-empowerment—where it is needed most.

Close to half the world’s population survives on less than $2 a day. In places such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the total living below this line approaches 75 percent. For millions of families in need, microfinance offers the hope for a successful small business and more: increased economic stability, better healthcare and housing, the opportunity for education, and ultimately, the real possibility of self-sufficiency.

3) About microfinance in Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfinance

4) G. Rengaswamy joins Unitus as India Country Director

http://www.itbhuglobal.org/chronicle/archives/2009/06/index-alumni-world.php#004387

5) Profile of G. Rengaswamy in Linked In

http://www.linkedin.com/ppl/webprofile?action=vmi&id=1461840&pvs=pp&authToken=sUt0&authType=name&trk=ppro_viewmore&lnk=vw_pprofile

6) Harvard Business School, Massachusetts, USA

http://www.hbs.edu/

(Harvard Business School, Boston, USA)

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(Below please find photos of Unitus microfinance entrepreneurs in India. Photo courtesy: Adam Huggins and Unitus)

 

(A microfinance entrepreneur running chilly business)

(Happy group of microfinance entrepreneurs)

(Microfinance entrepreneurs delighting in their loans)

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