It's the hottest CEO rendezvous in the country. And
not just because it's a date with Simi Garewal. With the 50-year-old
actress-turned-film-maker now producing and writing and directing a series of
tele-conversations, Rendezvous With Simi Garewal, with, among others, India's biggest
businessmen, there's only one topic of conversation between the duvets in CEO India: will
she, won't she? Especially since this will, probably, be the first time that CEOs will get
a chance of proving on a talk-show that they are actually human. The debutante? Well, the
Tata himself. Come October 3, 1997, and you can watch Ratan Tata, the
59-year-old chairman of the Rs 31,471.25-crore Tata Group, explain on star TV his
relationship with the late J.R.D. Tata, his future business strategies-and his style of
managing.
A few episodes later, the young Kumar Mangalam Birla-the 30-year-old chairman of the Rs
11,422-crore B.K.-K.M. Birla Group-and his wife, Neerja, will make their first-ever
television appearance on the Simi show. Declares the host: ''People will be on my show
because they are thinking people-not just because they are famous. I plan to do a
conversation show rather than a Q&A salvo. It's time to be me.'' And for CEOs to be
them with Simi...
They've taken the plunge-and not just into the family
business. While V.C. Burman's son, Gaurav Burman, -whose first job,
actually, was as a derivatives manager with AmEx Bank in London-now heads the Rs 721-crore
Dabur's dairy products division, Pradip Burman's son, Chetan Burman,
incidentally, a trained pianist from the Trinity College in London-spearheads the
company's foray into the bio-generics business. What isn't so well known is that both
these 25-year-old scions are trained scuba divers. Their favourite reefs: the Bahamas, the
Andaman & Nicobar Islands-and the Greek Archipelago. ''We love the water and hunting
for fish down there,'' say the buddies. Clearly, whatever they do, these Burmans Jr aren't
going to feel out of their depth...
It may be the back seat, but he'll probably still be driving. Last
fortnight, 63-year-old Ravindra Chandra Bhargava, finally stepped down as
the managing director of the Rs 7,916-crore Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) after an exciting
tenure at the helm-including a bitter face-off with the former Union Industry Minister, K.
Karunakaran, two years ago. But this immensely-successful career bureaucrat (IAS Batch of
1959) isn't pulling completely off the road yet. Courtesy the $13.33-billion Suzuki Motor
Co.-the GOI's equal partner in MUL-which is loath to let go of its ace driver at this
crucial juncture of MUL's existence.
Although RC had, all along, refused to take up the non-executive chairmanship of the
company, he appears to have eventually let himself be persuaded by Suzuki's bushy-eyed
chairman, Osamu Suzuki, who is very fond of him. But, to begin with, it's only a
sabbatical for RC. ''I'm going to take some time off and take it easy,'' says the keen
golfer. Although a safety belt may be mandatory where RC now sits, it may not be enough to
tie down the irrepressible Mr Maruti...
If there was a Tao of telecom tactics, he would have made the
perfect pupil. Not because Sanjay Modak, the 41-year-old CEO of the South
Asia operations of the $15-billion Australian telecom giant, Telstra-doesn't have a
track-record of setting the lines a-humming wherever he goes. (As AT&T's Asia-Pacific
director, he did, after all, double its revenues and profits every year in the region for
three years in a row before signing on with Telstra two years ago.) But we're saying that
only because he himself attributes part of his success to one of his passions.
When Sanjay-who has a doctorate in economics from Notre Dame University in the US-is not
crossing corporate swords with his rivals in the intensely-competitive global telecom
market, he likes to sift out business strategy from military history. To that end, he even
maintains a personal library of books on war-history. ''It's amazing how battles for
marketshare imitate real-life battles,'' maintains Sanjay, whose fling with Liddlehart's
Strategy: The Indirect Approach 27 years ago has now become a full-fledged affair. His
favourite tactic, straight out of Sun Tzu: Never Take Your Enemy Head-On If You Can Help
It. Now we know why Telstra has been (successfully) going round and round in circles in
the Indian telecom market.
It's the hottest CEO rendezvous in the country. And
not just because it's a date with Simi Garewal. With the 50-year-old
actress-turned-film-maker now producing and writing and directing a series of
tele-conversations, Rendezvous With Simi Garewal, with, among others, India's biggest
businessmen, there's only one topic of conversation between the duvets in CEO India: will
she, won't she? Especially since this will, probably, be the first time that CEOs will get
a chance of proving on a talk-show that they are actually human. The debutante? Well, the
Tata himself. Come October 3, 1997, and you can watch Ratan Tata, the
59-year-old chairman of the Rs 31,471.25-crore Tata Group, explain on star TV his
relationship with the late J.R.D. Tata, his future business strategies-and his style of
managing. 
They've taken the plunge-and not just into the family
business. While V.C. Burman's son, Gaurav Burman, -whose first job,
actually, was as a derivatives manager with AmEx Bank in London-now heads the Rs 721-crore
Dabur's dairy products division, Pradip Burman's son, Chetan Burman,
incidentally, a trained pianist from the Trinity College in London-spearheads the
company's foray into the bio-generics business. What isn't so well known is that both
these 25-year-old scions are trained scuba divers. Their favourite reefs: the Bahamas, the
Andaman & Nicobar Islands-and the Greek Archipelago. ''We love the water and hunting
for fish down there,'' say the buddies. Clearly, whatever they do, these Burmans Jr aren't
going to feel out of their depth... 
It may be the back seat, but he'll probably still be driving. Last
fortnight, 63-year-old Ravindra Chandra Bhargava, finally stepped down as
the managing director of the Rs 7,916-crore Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) after an exciting
tenure at the helm-including a bitter face-off with the former Union Industry Minister, K.
Karunakaran, two years ago. But this immensely-successful career bureaucrat (IAS Batch of
1959) isn't pulling completely off the road yet. Courtesy the $13.33-billion Suzuki Motor
Co.-the GOI's equal partner in MUL-which is loath to let go of its ace driver at this
crucial juncture of MUL's existence. 
If there was a Tao of telecom tactics, he would have made the
perfect pupil. Not because Sanjay Modak, the 41-year-old CEO of the South
Asia operations of the $15-billion Australian telecom giant, Telstra-doesn't have a
track-record of setting the lines a-humming wherever he goes. (As AT&T's Asia-Pacific
director, he did, after all, double its revenues and profits every year in the region for
three years in a row before signing on with Telstra two years ago.) But we're saying that
only because he himself attributes part of his success to one of his passions.