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Home> Executive Track> Portraits
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| The man who knew two much |
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| Tuesday, September 05, 2006 |
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| What I would like to change about myself |
Learn to be more patient |
| Hobbies |
Reading, golf, travel |
| Best moment |
The decision to come back to India |
| A Must Have |
Optimism - To look ahead |
| Passionate about |
Business and Technology |
| Worst Fears |
What do I do after this job |
| Passionate about |
Making a difference |
| Fav gizmo |
I-Pod |
| Fav destination |
Italy |
| Fav Book |
Thomas L. Friedman's A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century |
| What ticks you off |
Insincerity |
| A lesson for life |
Embrace change |
| Mote: |
Live in the moment |
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Vivek Kulkarni, chairman and CEO of BrickWork, has had a career that is undoubtedly different and enriching compared to his peers in the industry.
He has the unique distinction of taking on two avatars: the dominant one being that of an efficient bureaucrat before donning the role of an industry executive.
To his credit, he has handled both the roles with panache, thanks to his attitude of letting his work do the talking. He got into the Indian Administrative Services in 1980 after completing his mechanical engineering degree from BVB Engineering College in his home town of Hubli. After his degree, he joined the Indian Oil Corporation as a probationary officer in Mumbai. Barely a year into this job, he was selected for the IAS.
Kulkarni cherishes the experience of seeing the aspects of the country that people choose to ignore. He recalls the “Bharat Darshan” tour following his training that took him to see for himself the daily grind of Indian soldiers at Rajouri in Jammu & Kashmir, defending the border, and also living in an impoverished village in the North, which follows a rigid caste system.
“As an IAS officer I got to see the country unlike anyone else. City people don’t look beyond their environment and live within a very civilized infrastructure.”
During his services he took on responsibilities such as welfare of Neriya tribals in Mangalore; setting up a 100 acre coffee plantation for the landless poor in Sakleshpur and working in drought-stricken areas in Raichur. A trying moment in his career came when he was the deputy commissioner in Belgaum. A Hindu-Muslim riot had broken out in the city and he thought up a practical way of ending the issue. Typically, during a riot, the police are ordered to round up people who more often than not are innocent bystanders like vegetable vendors or daily wage workers, while the real culprits are left out. Using his powers as district magistrate, Kulkarni ordered the police to release the arrested and announced that the police would arrest the real culprits. His ruse worked and the rioters fled fearing their imminent arrest.
In the mid-90s he worked with the Securities and Exchanges Board of India (SEBI) looking after the primary markets. This was followed by a stint in CRISIL rating agency, where he headed the infrastructure advisory services division. He picked up an MBA degree from Wharton Business School in Pennsylvania during the course of service.
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Before becoming Karnataka’s IT secretary in 1999, he served as the state’s finance secretary between 1997 and 1999. It was during his tenure that the massive e-governance project to computerize the treasury department called “Khajane” was launched. He says with pride that the system is working well without any hitch till date.
Ushering in IT’s golden age
The period between 1999 and 2003 (Kulkarni’s term as IT secretary) was when a lot of spadework was carried out to put Bangalore on the international IT map. The dream team of the then pro-IT Chief Minister SM Krishna and his IT “dewan” Vivek Kulkarni assiduously drew up policies to woo investment and more importantly followed them up with the requisite actions. Karnataka’s millennium IT policy was released within a month of Kulkarni’s taking over.
“Whatever was said in the policy was implemented,” says Kulkarni crediting the efforts to a dedicated team that stood by him. As elucidated in the policy, he set up an organization called the Board of IT Education Standards (BITES), which came out with ratings of the state’s engineering schools. The project faced some hiccups since some politicians who owned few colleges opposed the rating thinking it could affect their institutes' reputation. Kulkarni remained unfazed by the political pressures and went ahead to announce the ratings.
Among his achievements, Kulkarni counts the setting up of 220 training institutes called yuva.com in Karnataka and the decision to take BangaloreIT.com to a bigger level in 2000 among the significant ones.
“We started events such as the Rural IT Quiz and the Students Internet World that was addressed by the President of India APJ Abdul Kalam and Sudha Murthy.”
Kulkarni almost had brush with international terrorism in September 2001, when he was invited to Times Square in New York on September 6th to ring the Nasdaq opening bell, barely five days before the 9/11 Twin Towers attack. Kulkarni and Krishna did numerous road-shows through out the world, dazzling company heads with their presentations and propositions on Karnataka’s intent as an IT destination.
He also recalls how he was able to convince companies that cancelled their participation in BangaloreIT.com in 2001 by coming out with advertisements on CNBC and BBC with the message, “There is more to the future.” The strategy worked and all the companies that had pulled out logged back into the event. This is just one among many instances where Kulkarni’s never-give-up attitude came to the fore.
He was also instrumental in making Bangalore an attractive destination for biotechnology. Kulkarni created the biotech department; created the biotech vision group headed by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw; started BangaloreBio and also provisioned the setting up of Institute for bioinformatics and applied biotechnology (IBAB).
Act II: Enter the entrepreneur
In November 2003, Kulkarni opted for voluntary retirement from services and got into the start-up mode by starting B2K Corp. He explains that he got into the industry by chance rather than design.
“It happened briskly and becoming an entrepreneur was a quick switch. Four of us started it: Latika Pai, a friend Madhukar, Ghosh, an NRI from Denver and myself.
The team acquired Talisma’s BPO division with funding from UTI. B2K started with 110 employees and grew to almost 600 employees in 2005. The company did call center, IT help desk, tech support, research and knowledge process outsourcing.
Late last year, B2K got acquired by Allsec Technologies. While the call center and help desk business was sold off, Kulkarni decided to retain the research team and named the company Brickwork, after the company’s research suite.
Kulkari is well aware of the challenges of being a small outfit in an industry that plays the scale game.
“The margins are less and operating costs are higher. Our manpower cost is higher since we pay 20 per cent more than the bigger companies to retain our staff.”
Kulkarni has taken on interesting projects right from scripting speeches for American Senators to the most recent Build-Operate-Transfer (B-O-T) project for a hospital in Bangalore on behalf of US-based investors. Today, the team is 150-member strong and include a mix of PhDs, IIM graduates, IITians, CAs and social science graduates.
“Our company’s tagline reads “Gateway to the best of India.” We will undertake projects for those who wish to enter the Indian market, and those who want KPO and research services,” says Kulkarni.
Given his track record as a go-getter, one can expect a lot of unusual outsourcing activities and rising growth out of Kulkarni’s stable.
Priya Padmanabhan
©CyberMedia News
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