People business

Stained
Rajat Gupta , 62, was one of the first Indians to break the race barrier at a global consultancy firm when he was appointed Managing Director of McKinsey & Company in 1997. He has been feted by the Indian media for years, including BT, which, in 2007, quoted Nobellaureate Amartya Sen saying: "My admiration for Rajat arises from his great ability to provide social leadership in making much needed changes in India." Apart from his 34-year-long career at McKinsey, from which he retired in 2007, Gupta's social leadership role involved setting up the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and the Public Health Foundation of India. But now this alumnus of Delhi's prestigious Modern School and Indian Institute of Technology - as well as Harvard Business School - finds himself in a bind, his reputation being dragged through mud. The Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, of the United States recently charged him with passing on insider information on Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble, on whose boards he served, to disgraced hedge fund trader Raj Rajaratnam. Gupta, now an accused in the Rajaratnam case in the US, has denied all charges.

But he has also already quit several boards he served on, including Procter & Gamble. And while industrialists like Anand Mahindra have vigorously defended him on Twitter, Gupta certainly faces tough times ahead. At the time of going to press, Gupta was yet to resign from any Indian boards and his trial was yet to start, though Rajaratnam's hearing had started.

Kushan Mitra

Showcasing India
Seven years ago, she started the Eye on... series about different countries on CNN International. India was the first nation to feature in it. And now Ellana Lee is returning to India for another Eye on... project. The last time she was shooting for Eye on... in Mumbai, work was interrupted by the November 2008 terror attack. "Many of us were staying at the Taj (hotel) that time and we felt like we had unfinished business left. So we decided to do this series in Mumbai as well." Choosing the subjects was a challenge, says Lee, whose favourite India stories have a small-town flavour. One of the best such stories CNN did, she says, was about rural Indians working together to repair potholes in the road.

Anika Gupta

Social Networker
From nuclear scientist to software engineer and now the Vice President of Social Media at Dell, Manish Mehta has had an interesting life. When he joined the world's second-largest computer manufacturer 15 years ago, it had $2 billion in revenues and 3,500 employees. Today, revenues stand at $61.5 billion and the company has 105,000 employees. Mehta also played a major role in developing its website. "When we set up dell.com, we assumed it was the centre of our customers' universe," admits Mehta, "Now we want to reach out to where they are." Meanwhile, Dell earned an estimated $3 million from its Twitter activity alone, though Mehta feels the number could be higher.

Rahul Sachitanand

Moving out
He caused a flutter when he was appointed Managing Director of Oracle India a year ago after the software giant's global takeover of Sun Microsystems. The head of the smaller company in a merger being made chief of a unit of the merged entity is rare. Bhaskar Pramanik's appointment was a testament to his sales skills, extensive contacts and willingness to still go out into the field and meet customers. Despite these strengths, his stint with Oracle has lasted all of 12 months. According to the industry grapevine, Oracle, which earns up to $2 billion from its India operations, wants to push its core software business harder, rather than the hardware business it got when it acquired Sun. It was this strategy shift that prompted a change at the top. His departure, however, may provide Pramanik, also a bridge-player and hobby photographer, only a short break. There are whispers that he could next helm Microsoft's India ops.

Rahul Sachitanand

Cheers!
Patrick Ricard, alcohol magnate, was in India to celebrate the success of a local whiskey brand, Royal Stag. But ask him what his favourite drink is, he answers: "... Ricard, of course". He is referring to the eponymous aniseed liqueur created by his father, which gave birth to what is today the world's second-largest distilled alcohol company, Pernod Ricard. "I particularly like Irish whiskey," adds the chairman of the m7 billion French multinational. The 65-year-old says one welcome perk of his job is the right to drink at some of the best and most exclusive bars across the world. "I recently drank at the bar on top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. That is the highest bar in the highest building. Believe me, it was not the drink that got me high," he jokes.

Kushan Mitra

Pressing away
She describes her company Pressto as the McDonald's of dry-cleaning and wants it to capture a sizeable slice of the Rs 5,200 crore dry- cleaning and laundry market in India. Her illustrious clients' list includes Mukesh Ambani, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Gopinath Munde and Rani Mukherjee. "Having worked in India, I know that there are not many players here who can offer services that match the level of satisfaction customers want," says Dutchwoman Esther Lennaerts. In just over 20 months, Pressto India has moved from a single outlet in Mumbai to 14 stores in Delhi and Mumbai, clocking Rs 9 crore in revenues. But Lennaerts wants to expand to 50 stores and clock over Rs 100 crore in revenues by 2012/13. There is a lot of money in dirty linen.

Manu Kaushik