Why You Must Know This Man: The Life and Times of Amit Dutta Gupta

It is 1981. Delhi summer. A small office. 

Three "hungry" minds brainstorming launch strategy of a product. They have been doing this for the past 3 months, 12 hours a day.
 
The office is HCL and the product is Systems-2 computers. What they are about to launch will kick start the Indian computer story, and which will be known as the "inflection point" of the Indian IT Industry. This book is the tale of that "inflection point," and told through the life of that third "hungry" mind who together with Arjun Malhotra and Shiv Nadar was one of the stimulators of computer revolution in the country, a visionary who remained in the background and silently scripted the Indian IT story into a global epic―Amit Dutta Gupta. 

Orbiculsris oculi is the muscle that makes you smile―and this is a muscle that gets overworked after a session with Arjun. 

In his very accomplished career, Arjun has played a role of entrepreneur, philanthropist, board member, technician, counselor, referee, salesperson, and organizer, but never a role of a disciplinarian. 

Arjun has amazing capacity for networking and mindboggling capacity for remembering names, dates, and incidences. He communicates with thousands of connections, globally, on a daily basis through emails/phone, Facebook, and Linked-in. If not on a flight you can be assured of a response to your SMS, phone message, or email within few hours. 

“To receive the full value of success you must have someone to share it with”―Arjun believes and has practiced this during his long string of entrepreneurial successes. 

Arjun co-founded the HCL group in 1975, taking it from six-person “garage operation” to one of India’s largest Information Technology corporations. Arjun took over HCL’s US operation in 1989 and in 1992 he ran the HCL-HP joint venture in India. 

Arjun later founded TechSpan in 1998 with funding from Goldman Sachs and Walden International. In 2003, TechSpan merged with Headstrong and Arjun served as CEO and Chairman of Headstrong’s Board of Directors before its acquisition for $550m by Genpact in May 2011.

Arjun did his schooling from Doon School (Dehradun) and graduated from IIT with B.Tech. (Hons.) in Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering and received the Dr B.C. Roy Gold Medal. In 1985, he attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He founded the Prof. G.S. Sanyal School of Telecommunications at IIT Kharagpur through a personal endowment. Arjun was declared Life Fellow of IIT Kharagpur in February 2003 and was awarded Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) in September 2012. 

Arjun is one of the founding members of SPIC-MACAY, the Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture amongst Youth, and is presently on their Advisory Board. He is also on the Board of Governors of a number of Educational institutions like ISB Hyderabad, IIM Udaipur, IIM Shillong, and the Doon School.

The area between the eyes is known as “agna” the seat of wisdom―the point where all thoughts are gathered in total concentration. This is what grabs your attention when you first meet Calcutta-born Sushmita and could have influenced the comment from one of her clients―“I have personally seen the power of her mind when she designed a strategy for us to stall disinvestment in coal.” 

Sushmita is presently the Founder and Managing Partner of Confab Communications. 

For the past 20 years Sushmita has made Delhi her home and has successfully made strategic planning and business development her core competency, experienced by her colleagues with comment in Linked-in profile―“I believe her strength lies in being able to think strategically AND implement effectively.”

She has worked in organizations like DCM DataSystems, Xerox and Times of India and has consulted with Hitachi Cables & Wires Ltd to develop “go-to-market” strategies as Principal Advisor for emerging market (Indian Railways and Metro Rails). Sushmita has conceptualized management seminars with speakers and participants like Sam Pitroda, F.C. Kohli, Sunil Mittal, Ajay Chowdhry, Nandan Nilekani, Russi Mody, Alyque Padamsee.

This book is her tribute to her mentor Amit Dutta Gupta.