At first glance, Ernesto
Illy, the 83-year-old Honorary Chairman of Italian coffee major
Illycaffe, looks more like a Swiss banker than someone who's worked
for five decades in the world of coffee. But start talking to him
and it takes less than a second for that perception to change. For,
coffee runs in Illy's blood. In 1933, his father Francesco founded
Illycaffe in Trieste (Italy) that Illy Jr. turned into a global
brand, including in India. "We want to impart the latest techniques
in coffee production and marketing to Indian growers," says
Illy, who was in India recently. To that end, he's set up a Università
del Caffè, which will train 400 growers by end of the year.
Ironically, though, Illy's day begins not with a cup of espresso,
but Assam-Darjeeling blended tea. Of course, rest of the day he
drinks his own stuff. Young and Eager
 Hamish
Mclennan, 40, first came to India as a 20-something backpacker,
but two decades on, he is the youngest Chief Executive of a global
advertising company, Young&Rubicam in his case. McLennan has
a vision to make Y&R (part of Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP Group)
one of the most innovative advertising agencies, especially in
the 'interesting times' that he believes we live in. "The
internet, blogs, podcasts and even mobile phones are changing
the way people use and consume media and that is changing the
way we as marketers need to work," he says on a recent visit
to India. "But if we can realise this, then I believe that
advertising, good advertising and good energetic brands will always
be the best way to cut through the clutter," says McLennan,
the first non-American CEO in Y&R's 83-year history.
Money is Money...
...and an asset is an asset.
So, how does it matter whether your car plant makes money by building
cars or developing real estate? Or so figured Hindustan Motors'
Chairman, Chandra Kant Birla, who has signed a deal with Bangalore-based
Shriram Properties to redevelop 314 acres at Uttarpara, where
the company's 53-year-old manufacturing facility is located. The
deal, which involves building an integrated IT and automotive
township, will fetch the ailing car maker Rs 290 crore over the
next few years. "The industrial climate has improved in West
Bengal and we have the full support of our unions because they
know a lot of the money will be ploughed back into the plant,"
says a group spokeswoman, speaking for Birla. Apparently, the
money is to be spent on "rejuvenating and expanding the product
line" at Uttarpara, which currently manufactures the Ambassador
car.
Warming Up to India
It's
official now. Starbucks is coming to India by year-end. That means,
the Seattle-based coffee chain's founder, Howard Schultz, has
moved a step closer towards his dream of having 40,000 coffee
shops by entering emerging markets. But like the 54-year-old Schultz,
who sent his director of trading and operations of Starbucks Coffee
Company, Colman Cuff, to make the announcement at the Indian Coffee
Festival in Bangalore recently, has found out elsewhere in the
world, there are copy cats to reckon with. India's cosmetics entrepreneur,
Shahnaz Husain, has announced plans of launching "Starstrucks",
a chain of-what else-coffee bars. In China, the American retailer
had to drag to court Shanghai XingBaKe Coffee Shop because the
name translated into Starbucks in English. In South Korea, too,
it faced a similar problem. It won in China, but lost in South
Korea. So, Schultz must be keeping his fingers crossed.
From Her Heart
 When
Kokilaben Ambani turned 75 on February 24, she chose to mark the
occasion by launching a book on her late husband, Dhirubhai Ambani.
Authored by Kokilaben, "Dhirubhai Ambani-The Man I Knew"
contains rare pictures of Dhirubhai's birthplace in Chorwad, his
school at Junagadh and also pictures of him in Yemen. It also
has articles by Kokilaben, her children and grandchildren. It
is learnt that Kokilaben broached the topic of the book to Dhirubhai
when he was alive. The launch of the book, which took place at
the Ambani residence "Sea Wind" in South Mumbai, was
a family function, but had Maharashtra's Chief Minister and Governor
among the guests. For Kokilaben, who saw Dhirubhai rise from a
village in Gujarat to the zenith of corporate success, the book
must mean a lot. And possibly for Dhirubhai too. He couldn't have
asked for a better author for his biography.
 Taking
on Google
When
this magazine first met Jimmy Wales, 40, back in 2004, Wikipedia
was still an upstart online collaborative project. Three years
on, Wikipedia is used by everybody from research students to housewives.
So, you would think the former options trader would be happy.
Not quite. He thinks the same human editorial judgement that created
and forms the backbone of Wikipedia can be applied to search engines.
So along with another technology entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos of Amazon,
he plans to create a 'user-created' search engine to rival Google.
"I like making money and there are honorable ways of doing
it," he told BT recently. The search engine is dubbed 'Wiki-Asari',
a Hawaiian-Japanese combination that roughly translates into 'Collaborative
Fast Search'. Should Google worry? Wait for an answer.
-Contributed by Krishna Gopalan,
Kushan Mitra, Rahul Sachitanand, Pallavi Srivastava And Nitya
Varadarajan
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