SANJAY RISHI (L) & VIBHA RISHI : Off to the Big Apple

They are one of New Delhi's corporate power couples. And soon, they could be New York's. Sanjay Rishi, Vice President and gm (Global Service Centres), American Express, and wife Vibha Paul Rishi, Executive Director (Marketing), Pepsi India, are moving to the American east coast to play new roles at their respective organisations. According to the missus, the relocation plan had been in the works for some time, and now that their companies have made them irresistible offers, the family is all set to pack its bags. Apparently, for Mama Rishi, the bigger lure is not having to go through the nail-biting tension of seeing her children (14 and 11) through the board exams.

GAUTAM DALAL: His is a difficult act to follow

A New Math

Three years after he first arrived to take over as the chairman and CEO of KPMG India, Gautam Dalal is returning to the firm's London office. Just how successful was he? KPMG India says so successful that it's going to take a three-member leadership team to replace him. Dalal's reasoning: "The firm is now of such size that the responsibilities of leadership need to be spread more widely." And they bought that.

J.J. VALAYA: Going after the big bucks

Dress 'em Up

If this summer corporate India turns out nattier than it usually does, you'll have one man to thank for it: J.J. Valaya, the Delhi-based fashion designer. The 35-year-old Valaya, who already owns three labels-J.J. Valaya, Studio Valaya, and Valaya Home-is now moving into corporate fashion consultancy and institutional design. He has set up a separate unit that will advice corporates on how to create a dress code for their staff-should it be formal, funky or khaki. "Being in the business of fashion, it makes logical sense to foray into this area," huffed Valaya, rushing between meetings. The good news: a few corporates are already beginning to queue up, although the official launch is more than a month away.

RAMALINGA RAJU: Doing the right thing

Heavy Hitting

Fine, Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers may have disappointed his investors with a lower-than-forecast earnings in the third quarter. But you can't blame him for not doing right by his investors. On January 23, 2003, Raju roped in Vinod Dham and Krishna Palepu as independent directors on the board of Satyam. While Dham is widely regarded as the "father of the (Intel) Pentium" and is currently Co-Founder and Managing Member of NewPath Ventures, Palepu is a strategy don at the Harvard Business School, and who has a special interest in analysing how companies communicate their effectiveness to investors. Their knowledge and network of friends are expected to give Satyam that critical edge. Says Raju: "We are gearing up to compete more directly with some of the best companies in the world and, therefore, we will need a lot of advice and help from leaders with best backgrounds." That should mollify his investors a bit.

SHIV NADAR: Showing the way

For Dad

If you happened to be at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, in January this year, you would have bumped into a bunch of students from India. Not unusual, except that this set would likely have come all the way from Kolavakkam, Tamil Nadu, where Shiv Nadar of HCL Technologies has set up the SSN School of Advanced Software Engineering in honour of his father. He has invested more than Rs 50 crore out of his pocket to set up and endow the school, which offers a degree in association with Carnegie Mellon. One year of the 18-month programme is spent in India, and the rest at the American university. The first year's batch of 26 is on full scholarship. Says Nadar, who believes it is industry's job to empower academic institutions: ''For me it is the realisation of a personal dream: to set up an educational institute with (offering) world-class education at affordable cost.'' Now, all we need is for industry to follow suit.

SUNIL MITTAL: The Gods have smiled

Providential Profits

His last year's trip to Tirupati seems to be paying off. For the nine months ended December 31, 2002, Sunil Mittal of Bharti Tele-Ventures posted a surprise 71 per cent jump in gross profits at Rs 499 crore. In that time, Bharti more than doubled its subscriber base to cross the three-million mark, and almost doubled revenues to Rs 2,043 crore. But net of all expenses, the diversified telecom giant posted a loss of Rs 204 crore. Most analysts expect a turnaround next year. Just the same, Mittal should plan another trip to Tirupati.

-contributed by Seema Shukla, E. Kumar Sharma, Vandana Gombar,
and Abha Bakaya