Dr. Indranath Chatterjee,

Independent Director, Khadim India Ltd.

Can you let us walk through your journey post IIMC?

IIM C gave new wings in my life. I was not sure what I wanted to achieve in my life at that time but education at IIM did open up my mind. As I went along my professional journey, there was always a process of new learning along with de-learning. Since I have mentality of a student, at all places I tried to cultivate new learning. Wherever I found that my old knowledge base is not sufficient, I travelled extra mile to gain it.

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As IIM has given me a new perspective in my life, wherever I worked I tried demonstrate that I have superior knowledge. So, I avoided getting into situation where I blindly followed others. Even if I took charge of position from somebody, I tried learning from past but then tried to keep on improving to do things in a new way. This has helped me to get noticed by others.

I worked in different companies and functions which enriched me professionally.

I have observed that, it is not only that you have to apply your knowledge but you have to work in teams as well and thus interaction with people becomes important. Identifying and judging the behaviour to get the right candidates who have similar mindset to contribute to the work is very critical. I have always taken help from such people to bring value to the system I am in.

Mentors in life:

I am lucky that I had several good bosses and thus several mentors in my life that has really helped me to evolve as a person.
IIM Faculty has played important role in my life as initial mentors. In our time Behavioural Science, Finance and operations faculty were best and thus helped me to learn the nuances of business and values in life.

Key initiative at ONGC:

I was in energy sector and at that time (mid 90s) SAP was not a buzz word in business. But to streamline processes and improve its effectiveness I explored SAP in ONGC which was a new initiative. We were the 1stPSU and probably among a first few companies in India who selected SAP for operations excellence. Today ONGC is one of the organizations that embraced SAP in almost all functional areas. During those time I got opportunity to have interaction with top officials of SAP and attended several international conferences. Through these conferences and interactions with CIOs, I explored   the challenges that traditional industry face while implementing sophisticated tool like SAP. The challenge was the acceptability of these platforms by our people without whom you can’t embrace such new systems.

I was lucky to have great team with me that facilitated adoption and implementation of finance module at ONGC despite initial hurdles and resistance to change from unions and associations.
  During my stint in the Board as Finance Director we took several transformational initiatives which helped the organization in many ways.  What I want to convey that one should always look for new ways of doing things and address challenges. 

How has been the transition from EXECUTIVE to INDEPENDENT director?

I think I would give a little longish answer to this. My focus was not on finance Initial days and I was looking for a career in marketing. Finance was my second option and came more as a chance. The company I was associated persuaded me to move in Financer as I have some flair for analysis and churning numbers. Eventually I had to move to finance from Corporate Planning. At that stage I wanted to equip myself with technicalities of finance for a better hang of it. First option came to my mind was to go for CA but that was not possible without leaving the Job, so I opted for CS and ICWA. I completed both in very quick time and gained immense learning.

Throughout my journey I tried to do things differently. For this one needs knowledge and application of knowledge. Thus, I kept on going back to colleges to learn and thus did advanced courses in ASCI, IIMA, Texas University, Dallas and then Kellogg Graduate School Of Business, USA.

I also had the privilege of interacting with who’s who in energy, investment banking, finance, insurance, consultancy, other PSUs etc. besides government luminaries. I also visited World Bank during crisis period in 90s. All those opportunities gave me new exposure and new learning and helped in benchmarking with best in class to improve our business.
During my time I recruited many people and I used to mentor those young people. This has helped me to perform better.

After long career at ONGC, I joined private firms and family managed firms where philosophy were different – they had altogether different motive of business. I tried to learn this new way of doing business at Hinduja Group and Jindal Drilling. I noticed how Jindal Drilling was predominantly dependent on one customer for sustainability which brought high risk for business. I shared my view with owners and realized that owners have different aspiration and work culture for their business that is completely different from a perspective of professional managers.

During that time I thought to further equip myself and therefore went for doctoral degree at the age of 60+. After this, I thought to contribute in academics and started teaching at Calcutta Business School.

From 1994 onwards I was mostly associated with companies at Board levels in executive or non-executive capacity. During 2006 Khadim’s approached me to join them as an Independent Director before they became public. I found Khadim’s was emerging as a professionally managed company and promoters wanted to leverage professional inputs and guidance and role is quite satisfying and I continue to remain with them as an Independent Director. Two years ago Khadim’s went public. Now I chair their Audit Committee and Nominations Committee.

How do you see the current stage of Corporate Governance in India?

I think true sense of Corporate Governance is still not achieved by Indian Firms and it is still evolving. There are firms who are ahead in race but majority are lagging. Companies comply with CG due to pressure from SEBI and other authorities. But the scams, mismatch of resources, poor resources utilization and defaults show that there is a gap in effective Corporate Governance in Indian Companies and thus a lot to be done in this space.

If one wants to practise Corporate Governance in true sense, one must try to benchmark with Global Standards and then practise it. Although I must tell you that many companies even in developed countries is far from practising the concept of CG in true sense going by many financial irregularities and scams. 

There are many challenges but we have to adopt CG as integral part of our business. It has to be transformed from compliance based to be made part of culture of the company. Also, it should be practised not only at board level but in all transactions that companies do.

What role did IIMC play in your life during your days here?

While I was applying for PGP I was not sure what management will do to me.  Before joining here, I already had work experience. I was coming back to studies after 3-4 years of break.  I was a quite introvert those days. But college gave me altogether new exposure. The best is that it restored my confidence in my abilities that I can use my knowledge anywhere. This confidence has shaped me and have helped all my life.
An urge to learn – this inspiration I drew from this place which have been with me even now.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I read newspaper very thoroughly. Strategy, Leadership and Culture – I find interesting and thus try to acquire knowledge in these areas and also mentor young professionals in these areas to groom them for future roles.

I play Golf and thus hit the course whenever I have opportunity. I enjoy listening music. Travelling is what keeps me charged and so far have visited 44 countries and many countries multiple times initially officially and subsequently as tourists.

Rapid Fire round

Mr.Praful Sheth

CEO & Founder at Progressive Talents INC

Welcome back on campus, Sir! So just to start this interview session on a light note, we would like you to talk about the skills acquired in this place that assisted you the most in your profession.

There are 4 fundamental skills which act as a basic building block in your life:

• Creative thinking
• Critical reasoning
• Communication
• Team skills

All management principles emerge from these 4 basic skills.

You founded Progressive Talents INC in 2009, which is a unique e-learning platform offering broad range of courses starting from school level to professional level courses. What was the motivation behind this?

I was a consultant to CEOs and MDs. I also worked with the World Bank. I then asked myself whether I can be a consultant to a child, because that requires a different kind of communication. So I started researching further in this area and received a lot of good responses. This made me enter into the education field.
My main focus is towards primary education because we believe that moulding is much easier at a younger age. That was the reason why we founded Progressive Talents INC. The mission of the company is to identify young talents, nurture them and transform them into global citizens

Apart from this, you have worked in diverse consulting domains throughout your career. Could you tell us more about your journey?

Our main forte as I see is that we were pioneers in introducing new concepts in management. For example, we were the first to start the concept of deputation in recruitment services. That brought in very good resources and generated lot of revenue. It has become a common concept now in the industry.

We had done something similar in marketing. We were providing a marketing team to a client for a period of 6 months to a year and we used to run the business for them for that period. These are some of the quite innovative concepts that helped us grow well.

What differences do you observe in the education system in USA and India market from progressive talent’s point of view and from the point of E-learning?

E-learning is only an option. The basic education system in India focuses on content while in western countries, the focus is on how to learn. Children are taught about the how and why of a thing in US right from their young age. Whereas in India it is more about what and when. That makes a lot of difference.
Our curriculum focuses more on how and why. We integrate this concept in the Indian curriculum. That is how we combine both these systems.

Rapid fire round:

Compared to 2009 when you started out with progressive talent, the start-up ecosystem has grown leaps and bounds in the India with the government playing an active role in promoting start-ups. How different was the situation back then for you? What were the challenges you faced in starting out which are not a headache anymore for an entrepreneur today?

The main obstacle which my company faced, being an American company is the behaviour pattern of employees. In India, people stop working in the absence of supervision, while that does not happen in western countries. As an American company, we were finding it very difficult to remain in India and make sure that the operations go on.
We did not face any permission issues as we were very flexible. We will be starting learning hubs in various parts of the country. The first learning hub is started at Ahmedabad. These are points where face to face learning happens, and this supplements the E-Learning platforms.

How was your experience working as a consultant for World Bank?

The best thing I liked in those assignments is the speed with which they were giving responses. Even if you submit a 500-600 pager report, the next morning they would be ready with the analysis of the entire report. I have never seen such a high response speed in my life. They had consultant teams working day and night and were prepared to handle such load.

Any message for the students of IIM Calcutta?

Apart from focusing on earning money, one should also focus on contributing to the society’s progress. That social commitment is something I have taken up in the past and it has always given me more satisfaction over anything else.