People who Matter: Anurag Nagpal, Surojit Roy and Kiran Desai

9th in a series of articles to acknowledge great people who helped shape my professional journey. This is to celebrate the degree of impact these people had on my life.

Sorry for the unavoidable break I took for this series last weekend. I am back and hope to stay on course going forward.

After spending memorable 10 years in Japan, right from 2000 to 2010, we decided to move back to India in April 2010. The move was on the cards for some time. After having attained decent success scaling up business for Wipro's Product Engineering services, I also had a great stint with Wipro's Testing Services. Under the leadership of Gangadhariah and with solid support from managers like Saikrishna, Wipro had attained lot of success in this tough domain across geographies.

Once we had made the big decision to move back, the question was where and in which group of Wipro should I join. Wipro Infotech, the domestic arm of Wipro, unlikes its global arm, Wipro Technologies, was a different company altogether. Back in 2010, unlike the global business, where the outsourcing concept is a no-brainer, customers in India believe in making you do all kinds of song and dance, before they outsource any work. Instead of cost arbitrage, the key factor that works for outsourcing is 'domain competency' and 'process knowledge', as these ensure efficiencies of scale and justifies the work being outsourced.

With marquee customers, well established delivery team and solid infrastructure set-up, Wipro's Managed IT Services (MIT) was the obvious choice for me to join. Under the able leadership of Kiran Desai, MIT had attained significant scale and had a great leadership team.

While I will admit that I had limited interaction with Kiran during my stint with MIT, what I got to know of him and what I learnt from him, was quite valuable. Very quick at judging people and understanding the situation, Kiran was known as a tough leader but very understanding when it came to people issues. One could not ''beat around the bush' when discussing issues with him. He was held in high regard by people internally and customers alike.

In my sales role, as Regional Sales Head, North, I was reporting to Surojit Roy. Surojit was one of those astute sales leaders who could identify the minutest of issues even in delivery. It was difficult for anyone in sales to bluff with him. He would know who is telling the truth and who is making stories. A total workaholic, it was very common for Surojit to spending long hours at work, in office and at client site alike. My sales career literally started off in Japan and I had umpteen examples of workaholics to work with, but clearly, Surojit could beat any Japanese in hard-work, any-day.

My dual reporting structure meant I had another manager locally from delivery perspective and Anurag Nagpal is among the coolest and calmest delivery heads that I have had an opportunity to work with. He had infinite amount of patience when dealing with any crisis and customer escalations. After having analysed the issue, he would not mince words when directing people to solve a major issue. A totally team man, Anurag enjoyed was popular for his easily approachable and friendly nature. Of course, there were people who did take advantage of this, but Anurag was not one to keep count of such incidents.

Overall, my stint with Wipro's Managed IT services business was made memorable by these three stalwarts, who, in their own respective ways, made sure that I settled down fast after a long stint in Japan, got adjusted to a dusty and fast growing metropolis city of Gurgaon and build good bonds with customers, sales team and delivery organisations alike. I will always be indebted to them for all the guidance and support that they extended. Last I know, all of them are doing fantastic in their careers and wish them all the very best for continued success.