Business Today, People

PEOPLE

Why Chettiars?
S. Muthiah, Chettiar Historian It's Out: The Chettiar Heritage, a book on the life and times of one of southern India's merchant communities. The book is authored by Chennai - and Chettiar - historian S. Muthiah (he's written two tomes on Chennai, three more on the Murugappa Group, one on the Amalgamations Group, one on Spencer & Co, and edits Madras Musings, a city paper), Meenakshi Meyappan, and Visalakshi Ramaswamy (all Chettiars), and A.C. Muthiah, M.A. Chidambaram Group has photographs by V. Muthuraman (another Chettiar). Says the historian: ''I always wanted to record Chettiar heritage because it is fast vanishing.'' If you're wondering why the book, or for that matter, the community, figures in these pages, here goes:

...because two of the largest business houses in P. Chidambaram, Former Union Finance Minister India, the Murugappa Group (now chaired by M.V. Subbiah), and the M.A. Chidambaram Group (headed by embattled BCCI honcho A.C. Muthiah) are of Chettiar-origin

...because the community gave India the man who was arguably its finest finance minister yet, Palaniappan Chidambaram

M.V. Subbiah ...because Chettinad cuisine ranks only next to Udupi and Chinese cuisine in its pan-Indian nature

...because ancestral Chettiar homes boast some of the finest architectural techniques used south of the Vindhyas (parts of these homes, like huge floor-to-ceiling rosewood pillars can be had for a consideration from several antique shops in Chennai)

...and because S. Muthiah himself is probably amongst the finest business historians of our times.

Scott Kriens Juniper's No Brush-Off
Ever since its founding in 1996 by Pradeep Sindhu (Yup! he's Indian), Juniper Networks has snapped at the heels of networking major Cisco, acquiring over a 30 per cent share in a few markets, where it competes with that company. So, when the professional CEO Sindhu managed to lure to head his start-up, Scott Kriens, came to India, it seemed only appropriate that he walked in the wake of John Chambers, Cisco's CEO, who spent a rather high-profile three days in the country.

Kriens, a graduate in economics from California State U, made all the right noises about the country including one about his expectation that the Indian market for the kind of products his company makes-routers, IP infrastructure, and technologies for the core of networks-will boom: ''We don't believe India is demand-constrained; it is supply-constrained.'' As for how his company is different, Kriens has a simple explanation: ''Our commitment is to innovation, not acquisition.'' His reference was obviously to Cisco's hunger for acquisitions (it acquired 23 companies last year). Touché.

Ruchir Sharma Morgan's New Money Man
Except for the fact that he's a golf freak, Ruchir Sharma isn't your archetypal investment banker. For one, Sharma, who has been writing a weekly column in a leading pink daily for the last 10 years, loves to hang around in media circles. And come election time, he even organises whistlestop tours for leading editors, columnists, and political analysts into the Indian heartland. Of course, that's when the 30-something Sharma (he is loathe to reveal his age) isn't analysing market trends in the Asia Pacific region for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. But last month even that changed. A commerce grad from Delhi, Sharma just took over as MSDW Investment Management's Chief Information Officer in India, succeeding his mentor Vinod Sethi. As chief money honcho, Sharma will manage a cool $1.4 billion (yes, that's the value of MSDW's investments in India). Keep your eyes on the man.

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