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T R E N D S
The 2001ers
10 People To Watch
Out For In Y2K+1.
 Fizz-Girl
It was the
'Remo Fernandes and the little girl (penny verse for those who like their
trivia)' ad that gave Pepsi an edge in India when it launched its soft
drinks in the early nineties. That very same commercial catapulted Vibha
Paul Rishi to the limelight. With her one-up-on-Coke strategies,
manifested in memorable campaigns like 'Yehi hai right choice baby!' to
the more recent 'Mera number ayega!' Rishi, who's the softdrinks major's
Executive Director, (Marketing) has managed to keep Pepsi ahead on the
advertising front again and again. Expect a lot more fizz...
 Northward-Bound
Retailing,
as eager-beaver corporates who have traipsed in are realising, is a tough
nut to crack. But then that's what gives tough guys their jollies. For the
last five years, Raghu Pillai, 42, CEO of the RPG Group's FoodWorld,
has been slogging it out in the shadow of his senior colleague, the
group's retail kingpin Pradipta Mohapatra. But now the spotlight is on
Pillai, whose onerous task is to expand the group's retail business by
spreading out of the south to the other regions, especially in the north.
The goal? ''To make RPG the largest retailer in the country,'' says Pillai.
Translated, it means that he wants to take RPG's retail business from Rs
30 crore currently to Rs 4,000 crore by 2010. That's an asking growth rate
of 60-70 per cent. Will Pillai pull it off? Keep your eyes peeled.
 NRN ver2.0
The early
bird gets the worm. In 1995, quickly sensing that the potential for
hardware was plateauing, S. Parthasarathy, CEO, Aztec Software and
Technology Services, moved into software. An alumnus of IIT Chennai and
IIM Ahmedabad, he quit Wipro after a four-year stint in 1988 to set up, in
league with a couple of friends, Computer Garage, one of the early
successes in the infotech industry. But by 1995, Partha had had enough of
hardware and decided to strike out on his own in software services by
setting up Aztec, which now specialises in XML, net middleware, and
database internals. ''There are no such things as exclusive products or
services. There are productised services and servicised products. Both are
intertwined,'' says he. Another Infosys in the making?
 The
Practicing Academic
He is the highest paid independent
consultant in the country. One of our few academicians who can actually
claim to know how business is done. But there is more than what meets the
eye with this zany professor. Unlike most of his peers, IIM-B's J.
Ramachandran has practical experience to add to his theory lectures.
When he quit the corporate world in 1992, he was Veep, Corporate Strategy,
at Reliance. Ramachandran's client roster has a melange of clients-from
Dalmia Cements Group to dotcoms like ZipAhead/JobsAhead. As the one-man
McKinsey explains: ''A number of these assignments will end up as case
studies. They represent a perfect synergy among research, teaching, and
consulting.'' Way to go, prof!
 Pharma Prince
His father laid the foundation and put up
the building blocks. Now, the dapper son, with a masters in medicinal
chemistry from Purdue University, is cementing the edifice. The headstart
that Dr Anji Reddy provided with his expertise as a chemist in founding
and developing Dr Reddy's laboratories (DRL) and Cheminor Drugs in the
mid-1980s is the springboard for Satish Reddy, to make the
Hyderabad-based corporate take the big leap to become the third-largest
pharma company in India after Ranbaxy and Glaxo. ''DRL is what it is today
mainly because of its belief in being research-oriented and effectively
working on new processes to build the market, and its ability to take
risks,'' says Reddy, 33. Mark the word 'research'. For that's where
Hyderabad's 'Pharma Prince' wants to make waves.
 Born To Be King
His designation [Veep (Products), Bajaj
Auto] has remained unchanged since 1995, but his ascent to the CEO's post
is just a matter of time. Rajiv Bajaj, son of that often-seen, often-heard
patriarch Rahul Bajaj, employs a rapid, but never loud, style of
speaking as the two-wheeler major-each of whose models showed waiting
periods exceeding a decade in the 1980s-fights to retain its marketshare
and protect the bottomline. Armed with a masters in manufacturing systems
engineering from the University of Warwick, Rajiv has now his eyes firm on
Bajaj's mobike future.
 Banking's Lara Croft
Watch this lady for she's going places.
Ever since Chanda Kochhar, 38, joined the project appraisal section
of ICICI 16 years ago, she's been hand- picked for new assignments each
time the institution made a foray. Be it commercial banking, retail
banking, insurance or e-commerce, the economics graduate from Bombay
University and MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj was in the right place at the right
time. Says Kochhar: ''Each time, I have gone in for a different
assignment. This has added a lot to my exposure.'' At the moment though,
as head of personal financial services, Kochhar de facto handles a
multiplicity of portfolios like housing, auto finance, and credit cards.
Glass ceiling? What glass ceiling?
 Multi-Hued Dreams
He may have India's answer to Gap and
Banana Republic. Only, Rajendra Mudaliar wants his entrepreneurial
venture, ColorPlus, to fight it out with global brands like these on their
own turf. The 46-year-old lawyer, whose Rs 36-crore company is being eyed
hotly by predators, wants to ''bring a blaze of colours into Europe'' by
opening ColorPlus' first outlet on the Continent. Having given India its
first world-class brand, Mudaliar wants to take on the world.
 On The Prowl
He's got a nickname that could do him proud
on the golf course, but N.V. 'Tiger' Tyagarajan isn't a golf freak.
Instead, this Tiger prowls the Gurgaon campus of GE Capital International
Services as its CEO. Under 40-year-old Tyagarajan's stewardship, GE
Capital has today moved swiftly up the value chain with activities that
include transaction processing, accounting and customer contact. Tiger's
next task is a big challenge: build India as the base for all of GE's it
activities. Aggressive and on-the-go, Tyagarajan's driving motto is a
famous Jack Welch saying: ''Control your destiny or someone else will.''
Keep your eyes on Tiger.
 Wired Guru
He's a demi-god on the IIT Chennai campus,
with a fan following that is a movement in the making. Meet Ashok
Jhunjhunwala, India's would-be telecom messiah. Using the
cost-effective cordect technology, developed by one of the six firms he
has incubated, Jhunjhunwala wants to grow India's telephone connections
from 32 million to 200 million. Says the unassuming prof: ''I will
incubate more companies in optical networking, 3g, and Bluetooth.'' Listen
carefully, that's India's new tech-guru speaking.
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