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| Mr. Sanjay Gupta Credit: YIFP |
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| Dr. Venkat Srinivasan Credit: YIFP |
On Friday morning, we had a guest session with two speakers: Dr. Venkat Srinivasan and Mr. Sanjay Gupta. Their session's main takeaways were do what you like to do, trust your gut and then "make your luck". Venkat is the founder of several companies including English Helper, Rage Frameworks, Brightleaf Corporation, Corporate Fundamentals, and eCredit. Mr. Sanajay Gupta is currently the CEO Global at English Helper. He has had a long stint at American Express, where he served in several leadership positions. He has also held senior positions at Motorola and Pepsico in India. Currently, he also serves as Director of Bharti AXA Investment Managers Pvt. Ltd., School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL), and other companies. He is on the Advisory Boards of organizations including Schneider Electric India and Acumen Fund. Sanjay is deeply committed to the development sector and is a Trustee at Charities Aid Foundation (India), Udayan Care, and Mobile Creches. Sanjay is guest faculty at Duke Corporate Education. (Source: English Helper Board and Advisors)
It was very interesting to know about Dr. Srinivasan's journey from a school in Delhi run by Delhi Tamil Association to University of Cincinnati and then from an academician to an entrepreneur.
Venkat did his B.Com. in Delhi University and then became a CA. He is not a classroom learner, so his learning really started when he joined his first job at Union Carbide which has now become an infamous name in India due to the Bhopal Tragedy. However, he values his experience at each of the place he worked at, especially Carbide.He shared very useful life lessons like : Doing what you like to do, trusting your gut and being true to yourself. We have heard these adages before but his life story reinstilled them. It was heartening to know that just following passion sticking to your core values does give success without having a premeditated plan about where are we going to be 15 years from now. Even as a serial entrepreneur, Venkat has managed to keep the same management team in all his ventures. When he started, a layer of upper management was required between him and his team. Sometimes, an outside expert had to be hired to fill in the gap. Yet, there is a core group which has remained with him which is astonishing given the frequent job-hopping scenario.
Venkat did his B.Com. in Delhi University and then became a CA. He is not a classroom learner, so his learning really started when he joined his first job at Union Carbide which has now become an infamous name in India due to the Bhopal Tragedy. However, he values his experience at each of the place he worked at, especially Carbide.He shared very useful life lessons like : Doing what you like to do, trusting your gut and being true to yourself. We have heard these adages before but his life story reinstilled them. It was heartening to know that just following passion sticking to your core values does give success without having a premeditated plan about where are we going to be 15 years from now. Even as a serial entrepreneur, Venkat has managed to keep the same management team in all his ventures. When he started, a layer of upper management was required between him and his team. Sometimes, an outside expert had to be hired to fill in the gap. Yet, there is a core group which has remained with him which is astonishing given the frequent job-hopping scenario.
Mr. Gupta's life story had a different flavour but was just as inspiring. The fellows were impressed by his use of humour so much that one question put to him was "how do you use humour to stay light-hearted in tough situations?" . His emphasis on taking tough decisions, and his message "Make your luck" will ring in our heads. He has made big transitions in his professional life along with valuing his life partner. He really put it well when he said "When you are an entrepreneur, you are sitting in the trench where the bullets are flying". Though he believes that before English Helper, he has always sat in the control room. The session also included a demo of Writing Assistant software package developed by English Helper. Since I studied economics and computer science, it was illuminating to hear about Venkat's real time analysis products at Rage and English Helper's programming.
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| Venkat and Sanjay Credit: YIFP Fellow Aishwarya Muralidhar |
This year's cohort of Young India Fellows has many budding entrepreneurs who were fired up by Venkat's and Sanjay's life experiences. What really struck a chord was that we could identify with these two individuals. The hardships that they have faced are similar to what many of our parents went through. When Venkat went to US to study, he had $40 in his pocket. Sanjay had to travel in trains to get a good education, right from primary school. Once, when the trains shut down and buses were overflowing with people, a 6-7 year old Sanjay walked 28 kms with his brother to reach home. He has lived in a time when Naxalism was so strong in Calcutta that finding a body everyday besides the river was routine.
Both these entrepreneurs made their destinies in pre-liberalisation, pre-globalisation India. For us, the obstacles are lesser but their lessons are still as important. I have a poster in my room which says "Life isn't about finding yourself, Life is about creating yourself". These two individuals have lived the quote. For us 98 fellows, YIFP is giving these opportunities every day to create ourselves.
Read about the other inspiring guest sessions at Young India Fellowship: Shaheen Mistri, CEO Teach for India; Madeleine Albright, ex-US Secretary of State and Kay Koplovitz, founder of USA Networks
amazing, as usual....
ReplyDeleteThanks Ketan
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