‘I’m fairly hands-off in my approach’

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: Getting into an elevator at the Modi Tower in Delhi’s Nehru Place one starts to feel the onset of an important meeting. Umesh Modi’s office is one the eight floor and it is from here that he runs the Modi Group of companies, an eight company consumer and specialty goods focused conglomerate. On a temperate day in late October when the markets have dipped to their lowest point in the month, Modi chairman, president and CEO of Modi Group of Industries does not seem perturbed in the least. He puts it rather simply, “We are not affected by either the stock market crash or the devaluation of the rupee because most of our businesses are privately owned which protects us from adverse movements in the former and in the case of the latter our foreign debt exposure is negligible except for a small Euro loan we took for our Bihar Sponge Iron business years ago”.

Modi admits that these decisions cannot be attributed to sheer smartness but are a reflection of lessons he learnt in the past and applied to the present, an ability which reveals itself as one of Modi’s main strengths.

He started his career in1972 as a 23-year-old chemical engineer from Banaras Hindu University at Modi Steel Mill in Modinagar under the tutelage of his father and has been focused ever since on growing the group.

As is the case with most family run businesses, Umesh Modi’s family is involved hands on with the business. His wife, Kum Kum Modi serves on the board of a few of the group companies. Of his four children his older son, 33-year-old Abhishek has followed his father’s footsteps in choosing chemical engineering as his stream during undergraduate studies and then got a MBA from Harvard Business School. Today he runs the Group’s Sugar and Distillery business. His daughters, Meghna and Himani have been involved with running the Modi Revlon and Modi Senator business. His youngest son, 17-year-old Jayesh is currently studying overseas and will most likely join the family business on completion.

Modi Group of Companies today is stable, self-sustainable and even successful but it hasn’t let Modi forget the old days. He recalls, “In the 1970’s and 1980’s the group needed to be on the right side of the government as everything depended on the licensing game”.