In the driver's seat

In the driver’s seat

Rod Wallace, 52, is not a porsche lifer but, by all accounts, will qualify as one. He claims to have worked with the German car company “on and off” for the last 30 years. “I somehow always end up here,” quips the Englishman, who recently took over as Managing Director of Porsche India, after completing his stint in South Africa, where one of his last tasks was setting up the biggest Porsche showroom in the world.

Will it be an equally smooth ride in India? With a target of selling 200 cars in 2008, Wallace certainly has a hard task in front of him. “We have to give our customers in India exactly the same experience that our customers elsewhere in the world get, and that is my challenge,” he says. So, what does Wallace drive? A Porsche, of course. He drives Porsche’s sports utility vehicle, the Cayenne. That’s hardly surprising, given the state of Indian roads, not least of all outside Wallace’s office in Jasola, South Delhi, that feel like a war zone.

New horizons

Some might argue that his job in Spicejet was done. Siddhanta Sharma, 50, the former Executive Chairman, had after all been manoeuvring to get an equity infusion into the Delhi-based airline (that it got in the form of investment from Wilbur Ross).

Sharma, for his part, has maintained a studious silence about his new job as Director-Corporate, at InterGlobe. Mum’s the word for now, other than this prepared statement, “InterGlobe is a success story of sharp business focus, tenacity in the face of odds, execution excellence... I am excited to be part of this enterprise.” InterGlobe is a Delhi-based travel and tourism major.

Thankfully for Sharma, despite InterGlobe owning low-cost carrier IndiGo, his job isn’t to shepherd yet another airline through troubled skies, since the group is heavily involved in other sectors of the industry.

Brand new role

Creatives continue to be the flavour of the season. It’s now Ravi Deshpande’s turn to be elevated to the post of Chairman and Creative Officer of Contract Advertising. His mandate: “to lead Contract, enhance its vision and embrace the future”.

A keen jazz listener and painter, Deshpande, 46, is credited with turning Contract into a melting pot of the best creative minds in India during the late ’90s. “My task as chairman would be to take the agency to its next level and continue doing the good creative work for our clients,” he says. Deshpande has crafted his way of working through a book: “Grow Young”, which he himself has authored.

Though the book is yet to be launched officialy, Deshpande closely follows its intrinsic theory that says: “un-boxed ideas reverse the ageing process of brands, making them younger and more desirable”. Little surprise then, his agency was among the top Indian performers at Cannes 2008.

Adieu, retail

It’s goodbye retail and also goodbye Aditya Birla Group for Sumant Sinha. After spending over six years with Aditya Birla where he shaped the Group’s global strategy and M&As, Sinha, 41, has now decided to move on. Sinha, son of former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, was picked up as CFO in early 2001 by Kumar Mangalam Birla himself, who wanted to infuse young blood in the organisation.

At the time of leaving, he was spearheading Birla’s retail initiatives as its CEO. “The new assignment is as challenging as retail,” hints Sinha, who will be based out of Mumbai. This voracious reader has a debt capital market background with stints in Citigroup and ING Barings in Latin America.

Interestingly, his exit happens barely two months after the expat CEO of Aditya Birla’s supermarket business, Andrew Denby, moved out in a huff. While Birla’s underperformance in retail may still invite scepticism, Sinha has done enough ground work for Aditya Birla Retail to take off big time.

Steering sun’s rise

The last 12 months have seen a strong resurgence in the fortunes of Sun Microsystems’ India operations, with revenues increasing by over 30 per cent year-on-year.

Subsequently, the tech giant has included India in a recently-formed Emerging Markets geography to provide dedicated resources for these fast-growing markets. Now, Sun has taken the next step by appointing Anil Valluri, 46, as GEM (Geographically Established Market) Vice President and Managing Director for India.

A 22-year industry veteran, Valluri, who succeeds Bhaskar Pramanik, has been with Sun India since its inception a decade ago. Now, this amateur photographer will have his biggest challenge yet, as he seeks to continue Sun’s resurgence in a fast-growing, but crowded, Indian market. “The formation of Emerging Markets region, and Sun India’s inclusion in that region, will endow us with the resources and support necessary to promote growth,” says an optimistic Valluri.

The philanthropist

He got a whopping 400 per cent rise in remuneration and gave it all away. Kallam Anji Reddy, 68, Chairman of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, got a gross remuneration of Rs 14.5 crore in 2007-08—that’s a neat hike from the Rs 2.74 crore he earned the year before.

This was thanks to Reddy getting 1 per cent of net profit as commission. His company in the previous year did rather well to post a net profit of Rs 1,176 crore. However, Reddy decided to play philanthropist big time and gave away the windfall or as he puts it: “On my personal balance sheet, I am up to my neck as I have given away everything.” He hastens to add that the huge gains were one-time revenue upside. “What happened last year was a one-off thing, which may not repeat,” he says. But there’s still hope as “Dr Reddy’s may bounce back in another two years”. That’s the philanthropist in him talking.

—Contributed by Kushan Mitra, Rahul Sachitanand, Anusha Subramanian, Anand Adhikari and E. Kumar Sharma