More than a year after he was unceremoniously ousted from his hi-profile job at Britannia Industries, Sunil Alagh is slowly moving back into the spotlight. The 57-year-old Alagh, who set up his own consulting firm, SKA Advisors, after 29 years at Britannia, the last 14 as its CEO and MD, is said to be consulting for his old friend Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's company, Biocon. Alagh, whose outfit offers consultancy services in marketing and brand building, has also joined the board of Gati, a logistics and express cargo firm. How's life as a consultant after years of marketing FMCG? Alagh couldn't be reached for comment, but one would imagine that he's missing all the print space he'd hog as Britannia's CEO. (However, he seems to be making a comeback of sorts there too; he was sighted on a page three recently). Another thing that Alagh would probably be missing is the company expense account. But, then, we'd rather not talk about it.

Still The Bete Noire

Infosys must love to hate its one-time protégé, Phaneesh Murthy. Not only did the 41-year-old give the venerated software company its first taste of a sexual harassment suit, but now as the CEO of iGate, Murthy just can't seem to keep his hands off Infosys employees. In a span of nine months, he poached five senior Infosys executives, including one in charge of the Canada operations. Now he's lured over Srinjay Sengupta, Infy's head of European operations. This should hurt Infy a bit. Sengupta used to head a 1,500-member team that fetched nearly 18 per cent of Infosys' revenues. Poaching Infy employees is one thing, creating another Infy, quite another.

Ready For War

Late last month, when the chairman and Managing Director of IDBI, M. Damodaran, hosted a dinner for industrialists and bankers after the board meeting, he was sending a clear signal to all that IDBI is back in business. And lest there be any doubt about it, he even gave the audience a memorable quote: "We'll give SBI a run for its money," is what he told his guests. (In case you didn't know, starting July 1 IDBI turns a bank.) "What I meant was we can take on the largest bank (SBI) in terms of cost competitiveness and range of services," says Damodaran. Beating SBI is a long, long shot. But expect Damodaran to give it all he's got.

Epic Struggle

Onlookers may be tired of India's "milky wars", but not Verghese Kurien, Chairman of GCMMF (read: Amul) or his one-time protégée Amrita Patel, Chairperson of NDDB. Almost two years after their battle first erupted, Kurien and Patel have routinely found one thing or another to squabble over. This one: taking NDDB's lone nominee director off GCMMF's board. Patel, however, claims that GCMMF hasn't fully settled its dues so the director stays put. Kurien disputes the claim, and says that "since NDDB has entered marketing, we don't want our plans to be exposed to it". Funny that GCMMF and NDDB should call themselves cooperatives.

CEO-Guru?

Everybody knows that annual general meetings (AGMs) of companies are great occasions for small shareholders to get up close and personal with the top brass. But turning an AGM into a workshop in the fine art of managing? That's what M.S. "Vindi" Banga, Chairman of the FMCG behemoth Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL), did at the recent AGM, when he delivered a masterly treatise on "reinventing distribution", replete with buzzwords such as "competitive advantage", "distribution paradigm", and "3-way converge". But the 2004 AGM was hardly the first time Banga, HLL's first MBA chairman, yielded to his management urges. Two years ago, his theme at the AGM was outsourcing-on how a $5-billion outsourcing opportunity awaited India and HLL. Obviously, he spoke too soon, because the next year he delivered a more introspective speech on how to drive growth by focussing on HLL's so-called power brands. Going by HLL's performance, though, what shareholders may be looking for is not so much a Marketing 101 as some real growth.

Pay Day

Guess who's happiest about centurion bank's turnaround? No, not the private sector bank's managing director, but Chairman Rana Talwar. Why? Because, Talwar, formerly global CEO of Standard Chartered, is also a big investor in the bank. Last year, his global fund Sabre Capital, along with a few other investors, picked up a 48 per cent stake in the ailing Centurion Bank. And since then, Talwar had been spending more time in Mumbai than London, helping with a turnaround. The hard work seems to have paid off. In the quarter ended June 30, Centurion reported a Rs 3.15 crore net profit-its first in eight quarters. "We are at the end of the beginning. Now it is the beginning of the main chapter." Once a banker, always a banker?

-Contributed by Venkatesha Babu, Shailesh Dobhal and Roshni Jayakar