4Tigo Network, Kent RO, Theobroma, Live your Passion Series, The CHRO and more…
Welcome to the July 25th issue of The Smart CEO.
As always, we present to you a collection of interviews with some of India’s most exciting entrepreneurs, professional CxOs and investors. In each of these stories, we’ve undiluted insights, narrated with anecdotes and learnings, as explained by the leader we interviewed. No opinions, no commentary – plain and simple exercise in knowledge sharing.
In our Starting Up section, we present to you the story of 4Tigo Network, a venture that uses technology as an enabler to improve the world of logistics. Founded by the former CEO of Manipal Technologies, the company has raised capital from Nandan Nilekani and Accel Partners, but that’s not why we pursued the story. We loved the way 4Tigo inked partnerships with Indian Oil Corporation and Federal Bank, to make lives of truck drivers and fleet operators much better. It’s the attention to detail, in identifying a problem deeply, that got us excited.
There are several stories that bring to the fore, the awesomeness of entrepreneurial journeys: The story of Dr. Mahesh Gupta who founded Kent RO in 1996, but it took 7 years and a Hema Malini before the company rapidly scaled up; Theobroma, the Mumbai-based patisserie that was founded in 2004, wants to scale up the brand beyond South Mumbai and Bandra. This new aspiration came from Cyrus Shroff, a former private equity professional, who teamed up with the bakery’s founder, Kainaz Messman, in 2013, to bring in this culture of growth.
We’ve launched a couple of new sections this month. The Live your Passion series was launched in partnership with a Genève-based Watch Brand, Frederique Constant, to narrate how several of our entrepreneurial leaders are pursuing exciting activities outside of work. These stories will capture a glimpse of both the professional as well as the personal journey of a leader, pursuing a passion with all seriousness. In this inaugural edition, we profile Prashant Mehta, a leading Venture Capital Investor at Lightbox, who is also a half ironman. Apparently, he once rode from Mumbai to Pune and back for over 13 hours and then trekked to the Everest Basecamp the same week.
The CHRO Series, is part of our quest to uncover brilliant, game-changing leaders who’ve one of the most important yet underrated jobs in the world – the head of the people function. We thoroughly enjoyed listening to and interviewing Milind Apte, the Head of HR at Ceat Tyres. I am sure you will too. Read on.
Hope you enjoy reading this edition.
