Arun Sarin

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Former CEO, Vodafone

Born on October 21, 1954 at Panchmari, Madhya Pradesh, Sarin was an academically bright student. He was equally good at sports like field hockey, boxing and various extracurricular activities. He wanted to follow his father's footsteps into the military by pursuing a career as a pilot, but when his mom protested, he applied and was accepted at IIT, Kharagpur.

He graduated from the IIT in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering in the top 10 percent of his class and received the BC Roy gold medal for academic excellence. He received a full scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate College of Engineering.

In the year 2003, Sarin became the Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone. When he resigned in 2008 from his post Vodafone was the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue. It was the firm’s large market presence in India that catapulted Sarin into the limelight. Currently he serves on the boards of Cisco and Safeway, Inc.

Academics

BTech (IIT)

MBA (Haas UC,Berkeley)

Awards

University of California at Berkeley, Haas School Business Leader of Year- 2002

University of California Trust (UK) Award- 2003

Born in Nagpur, Pandit was the Citigroup’s youngest CEO when he took over in 2007. The first Indian to achieve this feat, the job was touted as the toughest in the world due to the company’s poor performance.

A brilliant boy in school, he moved to US when he was 16. After finishing his Master’s in electrical engineering and MBA from Columbia University, he was determined to get a PhD in a different subject. In those days, students preferred to either study medicine or engineering. And that was the time when his guide advised him to take up finance, as it was a good field. He followed the advice, and switched to finance.

For a brief span, he taught at Indiana University Bloomington, Columbia’s Business School. He stepped into the corporate world in 1994, as a head of Morgan Stanley. His administrative and technical skills, plus an ability to make himself indispensable to bosses like John J. Mack and Phillip J. Purcell, fuelled his career at Morgan Stanley, where he became the president. He dealt with the Institutional Securities Division, Worldwide Institutional Equities Division. For him, this was an interesting area to work on

“To do well you have to put a lot of yourself into it.”

BS, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University (1976)

MS, Columbia University (1977)

MBA, Columbia Business School, Columbia University (1980)

PhD, Columbia Business School, Columbia University (1986)

Indra Nooyi

Chairman & CEO, PepsiCo

Chairman of PepsiCo's Board of Directors, Indra is the highest-ranking Indian-born woman in corporate America, and she attributes much of her success to her upbringing in India. "Being a woman and being foreign-born, you've got to be smarter than anyone else," says Nooyi, who often dons a sari at PepsiCo events.

Education

She completed schooling at Holy Angels AIHSS, Chennai, has a BSc (Chemistry) from Madras Christian College in 1974 and a PGDM from IIM Calcutta. In 1978, Nooyi earned a Master's degree in Public and Private Management from Yale School of Management. At Yale, she worked as a receptionist from midnight to 5 a.m. to earn some money.

Career graph

Starting her career in India, Nooyi held different positions at Johnson & Johnson and textile firm Mettur Beardsell. In the US, Nooyi worked with BCG, Motorola and ABB. Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994, and became chairperson in 2007.

Childhood memories

As a child, Indra’s grandfather insisted on academic excellence from his grandchildren. According to Indra, when she did not figure in the top three ranks in class, she preferred to throw herself under a bus than face her grandfather.

Awards

2007, Padma Bhushan

2008 Elected as Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

NARAYAN MURTHY

As a boy, Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy was someone who could easily go unnoticed in a crowd. He was short, but sharp. Often, his seniors in school came to him for solving Science problems. Murthy came from a lower middle class, Brahmin family from Mysore. His father, a school teacher, was fond of English literature. And like all the boys of his class, he too had dreams of going to IIT. So he worked hard, studied in the shade of boulders close to Chamundi hills, and helped many in his class to prepare for the entrance exam. Murthy wasn’t surprised when he got through. When he broke the news of his success to his father, it is said his words were: ‘Anna, I have passed the exam…I want to join IIT.” Proud he was of his son’s achievement but he couldn’t afford the fees and so Murthy had to relinquish his IIT dreams. Murthy stayed back in Mysore. When asked about his decision to stay back, he said to his friends, "It is not the institution but you alone who can change your life with hard work". He lived up to his own words. Several years afterwards, Narayana Murthy revolutionised India’s software industry by founding Infosys. And this has made him the icon of middle class dreams. He redefined India in the eyes world. India was no longer a third world country, but a fast developing nation. In the process, he promoted thousands of young, creative Indian minds to the world and made Infosys and India a hub of talent.It is known to the world that he founded Infosys along with six others with just a few thousand rupees which his wife, Sudha Murthy gave. It was an incredible risk to take, but Murthy knew it was going to work, just as he knew he would get through IIT. Which he did, eventually. After Murthy graduated from the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, he joined IIT, Kanpur.

Thanks to IT and its development, the little known romance of Murthy and Sudha Kulkarni is talked about everywhere. It is hard to believe reading from Sudha’s account of an introvert, quiet Murthy, that he is the same person to have revolutionised the IT industry, When Murthy was asked by Sudha’s father about his ambitions, he said he wanted to become a politician in the communist party and wanted to open an orphanage.

While he has opened several orphanages since, his dream of becoming a politician still remains unfulfilled. After retiring from Infosys, Murthy was hoping to become President of India after the term of Dr. Abdul Kalam. Even though he denied having political ambitions, his supporters would like to see him on the throne.

Our Mysore Murthy is, no doubt, a visionary who has ignited millions of young minds.

Education

B E (1967)

MTech (1969)

Honours and Awards

Padma Vibushan- 2008

Officer of the Legion of Honor- 2008

World Entrepreneur of the Year- 2003

Business India’s “Businessman of the Year- 1999

JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award- 1996-97

Om Nanotech sign LS Industries to provide service to customers in India

Om Nanotech, the manufacturer of memory modules and flash memory products has appointed LS Industries (LSIL) as its service provider in India to provide service to customers.

Under the terms of the agreement, the LSIL service centres will become direct links between the end users of Om Nanotech products and Om Nanotech Pvt. Ltd.

Atul Khosla, Director, Om Nanotech, said, “We are sure about our quality parameters and we also test the products as per international norms on various hardware and software platforms. We offer an across-the-counter - 3 year warranty on original product and another 3 years on the replaced product during warranty."

With branches in over 35 locations across India, LSIL will provide services to Om Nanotech’s customers in major cities like Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Cochin, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Madurai, Nagpur, Nalagarh, Patna, Pune, Raipur, and Secundrabad among others.

eSys would provide the components to LSIL to fulfil its warranty obligations

HP gets top Rank in PC & Laptop sales in 2010

HP India has reclaimed the top slot in the PC market according to the latest Gartner report for Q4 2010.

HP recorded a market share of 15.8 percent against Dell’s share of 13 percent. Acer at 10.7 percent share came third, while Lenovo with 9.6 percent and HCL with 7.8 percent attained the fourth and fifth positions in the overall PC market including desktops and notebooks.

The overall PC market in India totalled 2.7 million units in Q4 2010, a 16.2 percent increase over Q4 2009.

“This growth was primarily driven by the mobile PC market which grew 39 percent,” said Vishal Tripathi, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner. “A fall in prices, large deals from governments and demand from consumers and the education sector drove mobile PC sales. Many small and midsize businesses are buying mobile PCs, further fuelling growth.”

ESET NOD 32 AV Gets ICSA Certification

ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon Business has certified ESET NOD32 Antivirus Business Edition for use with the Mac operating system.  

Andrew Hayter, Anti-Malcode Program Manager, ICSA Labs, said, “ICSA Labs is now offering certification for anti-virus devices that operate on Mac systems, which affords high levels of protection for end users under both operating systems.”

Offering advanced security protection with an unobtrusive interface that runs in the background, ESET NOD32 Antivirus Business Edition for Mac OSX delivers real-time protection from attack and helps to facilitate compliance posture by providing up-to-date anti-malware protection for Mac, Windows and Linux platforms.

Epson To Cross Rs 500 Crore By End FY2010-11

Epson India expects a turnover of Rs 500 crore in FY2010-11 which is a growth of 25 percent compared to its turnover of Rs 400 crore in FY2009-10. The company has set a target of Rs 1,000 crore by 2015.

Samba Moorthy, Senior General Manager, Sales and Marketing, Epson India said, “Epson dot matrix printers enjoy a market share of approximately 53 percent while inkjet printers and all-in-ones (AIOs) enjoy 14 percent market share. Point of sale printers and projectors have 52 percent and 14 percent market share respectively. In all these categories Epson is growing fast.”

Epson would focus on segments like home, office, education, health, government, SME and retail to drive the numbers. “There would be an increasing number of new products specially created for the Indian consumer,” added Moorthy.

The company will also focus on programs that have already been set in motion like nSolution and nDimension.

On the other hand Star Outlets which are selected partner stores for Epson branding and display and E Cubed the exclusive Epson experience retail zones will drive the retail and marketplace visibility thrust from Epson.