 "S Ramadorai is AirAsia India chairman: 5 things you need to know")
AirAsia India is only the second company that sixty-seven-year-old S Ramadorai is working with in his career spanning 41 years. The first company was Tata Consultancy Services.
He joined the IT services company as a trainee engineer and went on to become the CEO. After heading the company for 13 years, he retired in 2009 and continues as vice-chairman.
“A giant of Indian industry. A great thinker. Man from the south,” Fernandes tweeted yesterday on Ramadorai’s appointment.
“That completes our team. Advisor, chairman, chief executive officer and board. Quite a heavyweight team for super exciting AirAsia India,” he added.
S Ramadorai is the fourth person from the Tata group to hold a position in the airline joint venture after Ratan Tata as chief advisor, and R Venkataraman (former executive assistant to Ratan Tata) and Bharat Vasani (chief legal counsel of the Tata Group), who are directors on the board .
The low-cost airline is expected to begin service later this year.
Here are five things you must know about S Ramadorai:
1. Sixty-seven year-old Ramadorai is currently adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the National Council on Skill Development and holds a Cabinet minister’s rank in the government.
2. He has also received the Padma Bhushan and Commander of the Order of the British Empire awards, according to a report in the Business Standard and was reportedly also approached for the post of independent director on Air India board in 2009 to revive the carrier’s fortunes. He was also recognised as the sixth most influential IT leader in the world by Computer Business Review in July 2006 and was named the fifth most influential person in IT in 2004 by Computer Business Review.
3. TCS grew from a $400 million company to a $6 billion firm under his watch. Getting the right talent onboard, identifying the right window of opportunity, and chasing the dream of big growth has been his secret to success. Ramadorai’s leadership turned TCS into one of the world’s largest global software and service companies with more than 200,000 consultants working in 42 countries and with revenues topping $6 billion a year.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIn an interview with Business Line, S. Mahalingam, former CFO at TCS, describes Ramadorai as an effective leader who has an eye for detail and is good at mentoring the next generation of leaders .
“Ram delegates work and ensures that people are empowered so the right results can be achieved,” Mahalingam told Business Line.
In his book “The TCS.. and beyond”, Ramadorai says timesheet and meetings are the two important components of a startup company.
He even describes how Y2K problem created a whole lot of opportunities for the Indian IT industry. And once he became CEO, he changed the hierarchical leadership and allowed everyone to be involved in discussions. The book ends with a quote from him saying, “A CEO should be judged not just by what he built but more importantly by what he leaves behind for his successor to build upon.”
[caption id=“attachment_883235” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] S Ramadorai. Reuters[/caption]
4. Ramadorai is not only a regular at the Mumbai marathon but also a great fan of Carnatic music. In fact, Indian classical music is his stress buster.
Though he never trained in Carnatic music, he picked it up from teachers who taught his sister and from attending weddings and festivals. Later, he even encouraged interest in music at TCS. “it is a passion; it is an outlook that helps you hone your skills at work,” he had said earlier in an interview with Forbes India.It was under him that TCS started sponsoring Ruhaniyat, the Sufi folk music festival.
5. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Indian National Academy of Engineers. He conferred with Doctor of Sciences degree (honoris causa) by Sastra University in 2006 and Doctorate (honoris causa) by Anna University. He holds a Bachelors degree in Physics from Delhi University, a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California - UCLA (USA).
He later attended the senior executive development program at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
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