Why private equity funds and banks are wooing former head honchos of India Inc to manage their investments
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Shantanu Khosla, 56, on the other hand, was clueless about Advent International, a leading private equity group, and its India footprint when he agreed to meet the fund's India boss Shweta Jalan for coffee at Mumbai's Four Seasons in February of 2015.
Khosla, a consummate Procter & Gamble (P&G) lifer and occupant of its India corner office for 13 long years, always believed that "there was no other organisation for him in India", but when he was offered a regional role, after 30 years in the same organisation, he did feel a tad restless and needed a new adrenaline rush. More importantly, he dreaded the prospect of leaving India.
That's when his former vice chairman Werner Geissler got in touch and sounded him out on an exciting new opportunity that was brewing. Just a month before, Geissler had joined Advent's global operating partner programme to work closely with its consumer focus team to assist them with identifying attractive investment opportunities and, as appropriate, generating post-investment value in their global portfolio. In India, at that point, Advent was zeroing in on one of Gautam Thapar's crown jewels — Crompton Greaves' consumer business — to carve it out as an independent setup and the hunt was on for a maverick to team up and spearhead the company under its new private equity owners, drive change and revitalise operations.
The first meeting was sheer happenstance. "We sold the entrepreneurial story. He (Khosla) would have the ability to build something which will be his legacy. It has an entire entrepreneurial challenge without taking equal bootstrapping risks of a startup that an entrepreneur undertakes," recalls Shweta Jalan, MD, Advent India PE Advisors. "CG was not a broken company. It had a strong brand, good distribution. We had to double down to focus on the business — things like supply chain, go to market strategy, brand and innovation, etc. It is really a journey from good to great."
Nobody, not even Jalan's team members, believed Khosla would be convinced. But she persisted and, after a few meetings, Khosla was drawn to the idea of empowerment in a professionally run Crompton Consumer in its new avatar. "After working in an MNC for so long, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a family-owned set-up. If the demerger had fallen through, I would have been out of the door the next day," grins Khosla, MD, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals.
So from a matrix-driven global organisation to a domestic brand brimming with potential, Khosla was, by July, ready to switch shampoo and detergents for fans and lighting.
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