He is serious about work and play. Paras K Chowdhary, MD, Ceat Ltd, likes to engage himself fully in both?to win. ?I am very busy at work and at home pursuing my interests,? he says amidst phone calls at his office in Worli, Mumbai. ?I don?t like to go out in the evenings. I am fully immersed at play at home with my son and my wife.?
Paintings occupy eye catching space on the walls of his large room. ?These are changed every month,? he says. ?I cannot afford to have them. These are all Harsh Goenka?s.? Goenka, chairman, RPG Group, is known for his passion for art and collection of paintings.
Before one can ask details about his corporate journey, Chowdhary surprises by saying, ?Can you imagine someone like me from a remote village in Bihar criss-crossing cities and heading big corporate firms? It only goes to show that anything is possible if one has faith in oneself.? How far did he want to go then growing up in Bihar? ?I thought if I could find myself a job in a big city like Patna, my life would be made.? He laughs, saying he did not have any clear idea about what the job would be. ?I did not think beyond Patna.?
Raised in a village in northern Bihar, where his father worked on a transferable job in a sugar factory, Chowdhary was home schooled for the first 10 years of his life. ?There were no good schools around. My siblings were in schools wherever they got admissions, depending on their age and lived in hostels. However, I spent 10 years at home being coached by tutors. It was embarrassing for my father when anyone asked him which class or school I was studying in. However, it was my father who laid the foundations in my life?be it education or life enhancing values. He spent a lot of time with me and taught me many things without making it sound like teaching and also introduced me to chess and bridge. I enjoyed the company of my father a lot. He was very friendly towards me.?
School inked the first stop in the journey which took Chowdhary progressively away from Bihar. ?I went to a strict, disciplinarian public school?Netarhat in Bihar. It was a huge shift from the life I had led till then at home. To waking up at 5 am to doing tasks by the hour set to a gruelling timetable was at first a tough call.? Unlike students who start school in Class 1 aged four or five years old, 11-year-old Chowdhary began formal school in Class VI. ?I learnt about discipline, the value of time here.?
From Netarhat, Bihar, the ?stylish? St Stephen?s College, New Delhi, gave Chowdhary the inspiration to excel amongst ?English speaking well-to-do students?. ?From being a merit ranker in Bihar to being with toppers in St Stephen?s, it was a cultural shock at first. I could not speak English as I was from a Hindi medium school.? Yet, when Chowdhary finished at St Stephen?s, he was amongst the toppers. ?I learnt a lot from here. But the biggest change in me was that I learnt that if one is good at something, then the frills don?t matter. I was amongst the junior students at St Stephen?s who could play bridge with seniors and also win against them. I also surprised myself. Though an introvert, I was able to take the initiative to go and talk to others.?
Chowdhary?s first taste of a job was at DCM, Kota, Rajasthan. ?My life changed 180 degrees every time I shifted gears. From the cold in Delhi to the heat of Kota and being thrown straight into the firing line were the toughest two years of my life.? But he is not complaining. ?I have learnt something vital at every phase of my life, which has helped me.? Chowdhary?s tyre career began with a few months? stint at JK Tyre, Delhi. He soon took over as head of commercial works at Apollo Tyres, went on to become the CEO and finally quit as a board member. He joined at the same position at Ceat Ltd, before becoming MD.
Apollo Tyres was a fascinating experience, says Chowdhary. ?I worked at various units of Apollo and had a rich experience working with the chairman, Raunaq Singh. When the company got into litigation due to its close relationship with Sanjay Gandhi and the Congress defeat in elections, many people left Apollo. I was advised by friends to quit. But Raunaq Singh had a lot of faith in me and we tried to revive the company and it began to do well from 1982 onwards. I was recognised in the industry. Later, when Raunaq Singh and his son had family troubles and the third generation in the family entered the business, I decided to call it a day as I felt I had worked far too long there.?
The decision to leave Apollo was made and yet, when he got an offer from the RPG Group, Chowdhary declined to join the tyre business. ?I had worked hard to make Apollo Tyres a name to reckon with in the market place. I could not now work in competition against it,? he reasons. When Chowdhary shifted from Delhi to Mumbai to work at the RPG Group in 1997, it also meant that his family had to cut loose from a city where they had lived all their lives. ?I was married while in Delhi, my children grew up there and my wife Rekha had a flourishing Bharatnatyam academy there.?
Chowdhary joined the RPG Group as a Management Board Member responsible for the group?s initiative in the areas of networking, telecom services and IT. It was only in 2001 that he took over as Managing Director of CEAT and as the head of Tyre Sector in 2001. At that time, Chowdhary found the company’s profile as difficult as it was for Apollo when it was involved in litigation problems. ?Not many gave me a good chance at Ceat but I decided to stick around and take risks. I had done this once in Apollo and come through. I was confident I could do the same here.? The biggest problem at Ceat, says Chowdhary, was that most people were in a state of denial. What would he see as his achievement here? ?Creating a team that has beaten competition. A team that is highly ambitious, very hungry for performance and is motivated to excel. We added capacity to our OTR (off the road tyres).?
There are unfinished jobs for Chowdhary at Ceat. He lists them in quick succession. ?We have set up a 500 crore truck and bus radial tyre project at Halon, Gujarat. We are 15 months away from production. We will price our product in such a way that customers will see value in it. We want to set up a world class R&D centre, for which work has not yet begun. We are shifting our Bhandup, Mumbai plant out of the city, most probably to Ambarnath. This could take a year?s time. Once this is done, the company will be on a safe wicket. We are small as of now in the car segment and want to become a big player here. Market research shows that we were seen as sincere and hardworking but also old fashioned. To rectify that image, we changed the logo to incorporate a vibrant and youthful image. We plan to increase brand visibility in the market place through advertising this year. Last year we added OTR capability, this year we changed the logo and next year with the plant at Halon going in production by October, we will have made a significant change in the marketplace.? Chowdhary?s dream for Ceat includes making it the most profitable company in India in terms of margins, growing at a faster pace, building a very strong brand and a R&D centre. ?I want to make Ceat a world-class company.?
When he goes home after work, Chowdhary is busy with his son and wife over a game of bridge. He has two children, daughter Alankrita Goel, a Bharatnatyam dancer, and son Rachit, an MBA working at a professional services firm. He has a few dreams for himself. Of visiting 50 countries in his life. ?I have been to 35 so far.? He also would like to emulate his father by teaching. ?If I could teach 10 students, it would be a good way to live life after retirement.?
What, would he say, was his success formula? ?I am a self-made man. I made all the decisions in my life and my father trusted me to do it responsibly. More than anything, I think my father?s guiding line helped me in life. To be calm in success and failure, to be ethical and to be hard working. Everything else that came my way was an offshoot of that.?