I miss Prakash!

A Tribute to Prakash Telang

I will miss Prakash.?His broad smile, his friendly banter, and his wise counsel.?He was a true mentor!?

Prakash joined our Board in August 2010 after completing a long tenure in Tata Motors. Till he joined our Board, I had interacted with him only in a social context. ?Prakash was always the centre of attraction in social events. He was very tall, distinguished, and as a very senior executive in Tata Motors, he was a local celebrity.?

As I was looking to add Board Members soon after the IPO, he was my first choice.?He had just retired from Tata Motors as the Managing Director. He was one of the key executives responsible for the Jaguar Land Rover acquisition and integrating two large companies.?Of course, his experience of running a huge Company was certainly valuable but what attracted me to reach out to him was an article in a business magazine that described how he was instrumental in innovating the manufacturing processes for the Tata ACE.?The Tata ACE is perhaps the smallest truck manufactured by Tata Motors.?It was designed to be super affordable.?What I found fascinating was how Tata Motors, under Prakash’s leadership, had innovated on manufacturing processes to reduce costs and to improve efficiency. One important innovation was to partner with vendors to minimize steps on the assembly line by engaging with vendors to deliver pre-assembled components. I was fascinated by this process innovation and wanted to experiment with the same in software development.?

Persistent is in the business of outsourced software product development, and I was keen to explore better ways to partner with our customers to build granular software components that could be reused and assembled effectively after they are delivered in the field.?

While I was keen to invite Prakash to join our Board, he had just retired from a business several orders of magnitude greater than ours, and I am sure he had many offers to join Boards of larger public companies.?Why would he join our Board??I was unsure, but the best way to find out was to ask!?

I connected with him and visited him in his house in Pune.?I shared with him what we do and the opportunity we saw ahead of us for Persistent.?He heard me out and agreed.?He said he didn’t know the software business but was curious and would gladly accept.?Later he mentioned that one of the reasons he accepted was that he was intrigued to see me come to his house in a Tata Nano.?Thus, I began my journey of working with him.?

While Persistent was a tiny Company from his context, Prakash was always very engaged and enthusiastic in all Persistent Board Meetings.?He had unique insights into operations, scaling, and efficiency.?He would always focus on the bottom line and share insights on improving margins.?While an engineer by training, he had an astute understanding of financial matters.?He was a member of our audit committee and would always encourage our CFO to explore ways to improve treasury yield and cash flows.?He encouraged business diversification and had valuable suggestions about doing business in the Indian market.

Beyond the Board Meetings, I would interact with him several times during the quarter.?He was an excellent sounding board for new ideas.?He was a great listener and would make insightful comments. Every time prefacing them with – I don’t understand software, I am a manufacturing man, but you may consider this …

He had a passion for mentoring senior executives, and he would come to the office at least once a month to interact with senior executives and to spend time listening to them and encouraging them.?He was an essential ally in evaluating all the senior executives we hired.

He was efficient with managing his time and his priorities.?He was on multiple Boards and travelled globally but always had time for us.

Prakash loved life.?He was an avid golfer and was a Scotch connoisseur.?He loved his glass of whisky at parties, and it was hard to get him to stay for lunch in the office; he would always want to go home for lunch, he would say, “Anjali has made fish at home, and I love my fish!”

During the last three years, when he got affected by Cancer, I regularly talked to him.?It was clear that both Cancer and the treatment were harsh, and despite all the suffering, he was always cheerful and continued to remain curious.?He was a true fighter!?He would ask me about the family – Sonali and our kids and inquire about Persistent.?He wanted to know about the new things I was doing and ask what I was reading.?He watched the Persistent stock price and was very proud of the Company even after retiring from the Board.

I had shared with him about the work I was doing with the India Cancer Genome Atlas, and during my last visit to meet him in the hospital, he had me share the idea with the medical doctors treating him. ??Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to find a cure for cancer.?When we see our near ones suffer, it only strengthens our resolve to do more to eradicate this deadly disease.

I believe Prakash has left us with a bag full of memories and nuggets of wisdom that we can never forget.?He will continue to be a guiding light for us even through his absence.

Om Shanti!

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