KAPIL KAPOOR: Managing East by moving West

Three years ago, Kapil Kapoor returned to India from Bausch & Lomb in Bangkok to take charge as the Managing Director of Timex India. With the American watch major floundering in the Indian market after a broken JV with Titan, he had the daunting task of pulling Timex out of the mire. Not only did Kapoor successfully break the international mould by positioning Timex in the lower segment, he also managed to outsource manufacturing to a great extent. The impressive performance has earned Kapoor an expanded role as the Regional Director for India and South Pacific, which covers Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. And what's more, he will be working out of Timex's HQ in Middlebury, US. The good times for Kapoor have just started to tick.

AMRISH KUMAR: Waiting to grow big

Fashioning A Change

For someone who is just 25, Amrish Kumar has quite an eventful life. By the time this economic grad from Bristol University, UK, turned 23, he had worked for two major financial services companies, Kotak Securities and HDFC Bank. But in 2002, Kumar chucked up a bright career to join his fashion designer mom Ritu Kumar's eponymous 15-store apparel chain business. "I had a couple of consultants to look at our business and we found that by using technology we could become pioneers in an area that is very niche," Kumar says. With an investment of around Rs 10 lakh, he's implemented a globally popular customer relationship management (CRM) software SalesLogix. "For a small business that has limited but high-value transactions, effective CRM is critical," he adds. Kumar isn't restricting himself to just implementing technology. He has also convinced his mother to introduce a cheaper pret line called Label to reach out to the younger lot and broaden the customer base. There aren't any immediate expansion plans, instead Kumar's focus will be on modernising the chain. Way to go.

KARAN BILIMORIA: Brimming over

Frothy Success

It's tough to keep the 42-year-old UK-based brewer Karan Bilimoria out of news. Weeks after he was elected co-chairman of Indo-British Partnership, which fosters trade and investment between the two countries, Ernst & Young, in July, named Bilimoria as "London's Entrepreneur of the Year for Consumer Products". Commenting on the award, the Law graduate from Cambridge gushes: "After creating Cobra from scratch, in the most competitive beer market, I've learnt that if you have the passion and drive to succeed, the sky is the limit." We hope there aren't any burps for Bilimoria.

SUBHASH GHAI: Betting on technology to cut piracy

Digital Designs

Hollywood icon Steven Spielberg hates it, George Lucas of Star Wars fame swears by it. But in Subhash Ghai the latter has found a high-profile proponent of the digital moviemaking movement in Bollywood. For those not in the know, a digital movie can be filmed and stored in small diskettes, reducing the chances of both piracy and wear and tear. Ergo, Ghai's Mukta Arts, a production house and Manmohan Shetty's Adlabs Films, a movie processing and infrastructure company, have tied up to create a new film distribution company that will help around 400 theatres in rural centres and B-cities to support the digital format. "It's a big step towards backward integration in the film industry through technology. It will allow us to widen our reach and cut down on piracy," says Ghai. Spielbergs be damned.

Y.V. REDDY: A new innings

Reddy Reckoner

Exactly a year after 60-year-old Yaga Venugopal Reddy left RBI as its Deputy Governor to make it to the rarefied echelons of IMF in Washington, he looks all set for a second innings at the central bank's 18th floor office in Mumbai's Mint Street-this time in the gubernatorial role. A career bureaucrat, Reddy is remembered most for his speech delivered in 1997, during his six-year stint as RBI's Deputy Governor, on forex management that actually brought the markets down. That, according to Reddy, was to see how the market reacted to a statement from the RBI. Seems like he wouldn't want to be forgotten as just another signatory on the currency notes.

RAJESH HUKKU: Weathering the storm

Survival Secrets

With a successful software product like Flexcube and a Citigroup parentage to boot, i-flex Solutions' pedigree was never in doubt. In a year when tech stocks took a collective beating, its shares rose by more than 150 per cent. For the company's 46-year-old Chairman and MD Rajesh Hukku, success would taste sweeter as Time magazine acknowledged him as one of the 15 "tech leaders of the world who survived the crash". "The key to success," says Hukku "is our committed team and a leadership that's focussed on making a difference in our chosen niche." Nirvana for it companies, if you still haven't figured out, lies in products.

-contributed by Roshni Jayakar, Moinak Mitra, Priya Srinivasan & Shib Banerjee