|
 Of
all the famous personalities that Sahara Parivar's Subrata Roy has
managed to rope in to jazz up his diverse businesses, Rono Dutta
must be the biggest catch. Last year, Roy brought on board Dutta,
former President and CEO of the world's largest airline, United
Airlines, as an advisor to Air Sahara. Past fortnight, he managed
to convince him to become its CEO, replacing long-time confidant
U.K. Bose, who stays with the Parivar. As for Dutta himself, he's
viewing the new assignment as a refreshing change from the rough
and tumble of American aviation. "Aviation is a thankless business
and making money is real tough, but we can show the way to others,"
says Dutta. And with elan, one might add. The IIT Kharagpur and
Harvard alumnus wants to make Sahara "a model of high-quality,
low-cost travel". That, however, depends on Dutta feeling at
home with the Parivar.
 Bouncing
Back
For Harish Doraiswamy, sports is forever.
earlier this year, Doraiswamy, quit Adidas India as its coo amidst
reports of financial irregularities (with him, CEO Tarun Kunzru
and CFO Shriram Ranganathan also exited). But it seems the 38-year-old
Doraiswamy is loath to move out of the sports business. He's now
resurfaced at IMG India as its head of business development. "At
IMG, there is the added element of mixing sports with entertainment
and lifestyle," says Doraiswamy. With diverse IMG events such
as Lakme India Fashion Week, India Open Golf and Chennai Open Tennis
to hawk, besides newer ones to build, Doraiswamy must already be
on his marks.
 Nouveau
VC
Gaurav Dalmia was probably the first
marwari business family scion to test the private equity waters
when he invested in GW Capital Partners and Infinity Technology
Investments years ago. Last fortnight, Dalmia, a Delhi-based investor,
added another first to his credit by launching India's first real
estate-focussed VC firm called fire (for First India Real Estate),
with Rs 250 crore in corpus. He's already raised Rs 100 crore and
hopes to close the first fund in the next couple of months. The
attraction for Dalmia: The industry's stellar returns and fragmented
nature, which makes funding lucrative. fire apart, Dalmia is co-promoting
a Rs 600-crore housing project in north Delhi. "It's the largest
housing development in Delhi in the last 25 years," boasts
Dalmia. Watch this man.
 Time
For A Squiggly?
Times may not be great for Chandra Kant
Birla's passenger car business, but a helpful wind is headed
the way of Orient Fans, another of his companies. This pre-World
War II manufacturer of a range of fans has received an order for
70,000 fans from Wal-Mart. There are two reasons why Birla should,
and does, feel proud about the order. One, Wal-Mart-which calls
the cheer routine its associates perform a Squiggly-is the world's
biggest retailer and can change Orient's fortunes overnight. Two,
with the order, Birla has been able to break the Chinese stranglehold
on fan exports. "It's a great opportunity for us," an
elated Birla told BT. Now, if only Wal-Mart could do something about
the Ambassador...
 Carry
On, Doctor
Honorary doctorates, even to CEOs, don't usually
make our pages. If we are making an exception this time, it's because
of the man in question—Venu Srinivasan. Few would dare
question either his commitment to or knowledge of total quality
systems in manufacturing. Long before TQM became a buzzword, Srinivasan,
who has been conferred with a Doctorate Degree in Science by the
University of Warwick, was already implementing it at his factories.
Under his stewardship, both his companies TVS Motor and Sundaram-Clayton
have won the Nobel Prize of manufacturing, the Deming Prize of Japan.
Helping him with quality issues has been the University of Warwick.
Says Srinivasan: "I am delighted to receive this recognition
from Warwick University. This doctorate is not the culmination of
our relationship but the beginning of a long and close association
between us."
 Wilting
Garden
It must really peeve him. On the day Azim
Premji announced a whopping Rs 357 crore in first quarter profits
for Wipro recently, he also lost his characteristic sang-froid.
It wasn't his managers who were the target of his ire, but the Karnataka
government. "We all believe that the infrastructure problem
is serious here," said a grim Premji, adding that Wipro would
start looking for opportunities outside Bangalore. An immediate
cause of provocation for Premji could have been the fact that the
new coalition government, which seems to lack the reformist orientation
of the S.M. Krishna-led administration, has not announced any major
infrastructure projects in the state budget presented recently.
But don't expect the tech-billionaire's censure to cause a change
of heart in the polluted city's administration. It knows well that,
tragically for all of us, there are few places in India better than
Bangalore. Unless, of course, Menlo Park is an address Premji is
willing to look at.
-Ccontributed by Venkatesha Babu,
Kushan Mitra, Shailesh Dobhal, Nitya Varadarajan and Sahad P.V.
|
