Rajdeep Endow?s battles started out pretty early in life. As a boy living in Shillong, violence in the region was a way of life. But that did not prevent him from being a managing director at the age of 39.

?My maternal grandparents lived in Shillong. That?s where I went to school,? says Rajdeep, as we settle down for the interaction. His forefathers moved from the Indus valley to Shillong some seven generations ago. ?You will have trouble finding another Endow in Shillong. Chances are that if you do, then he?s related to me.?

His father worked in a small town called Silchar, but insisted that Rajdeep did his studies in Shillong. Unfortunately, violence broke out in Shillong in the late seventies and he and his sister moved to Assam for safety reasons.

?In the north east, where I grew up, all demands stem from perceived and real inequalities in development between people from Indian mainland and the others. If you look at any of these rights, they could be any form of expression from ?give us the right of self determination?, ?allow us to develop the state ourselves? to something more subdued as ?we need to create more jobs, more funds and we don?t want outsiders coming in here and taking away what little have.? However, today it is much better than what it was in the seventies and the eighties,? he says.

Rajdeep used to go back there every year till about 5-7 years ago. Recently, he went back with his wife to revisit the place where he grew up. While he is still fascinated by the north east, he knew he had to get out of the area for his own future prospects.

?I moved out in 1990, when I was 18. I went to Nagpur and did my engineering there. Four years of computer science engineering and then I took up a job in 1994 in TCS, in Mumbai. After that I went to IIM Ahmadabad for a couple of years, and that was a great experience. After that I was all over the place ?Bangalore, Boston, Amsterdam and the last 10 years in Delhi.?

As a school kid, the only thing that fascinated Rajdeep was computers. ?So, I wanted to study computer science. I was also inclined towards Mathematics and analytical thinking. I am the first engineer in the family. My father worked with the state government in Assam and my mother used to be a teacher before she got married.?

Rajdeep doesn?t really remember when his love for Maths began. ?I cannot really trace it back. My father taught me chess and bridge when I was a kid. He has a really good memory. Maybe that was a connection to my love for computer science. I did not care where I studied. I just wanted to study computer science. In Assam, I hadn?t even heard about an IIT till I was in eighth grade. Anyway, after college, I joined TCS where I had a wonderful time.

I was into writing telecom software which was considered pretty intense technology stuff. Then I went to IIM Ahmedabad.?

He joined Citicorp in its technology business in Bangalore, but left in three months. He then joined CTP?Cambridge Technology Park?that did IT consulting work. They shipped him Amsterdam. ?There I worked out of CTP?s Dutch office and worked with Dutch people. It was a period of tremendous learning and growth. In early 2000, I came back home.?

That was a time when internet had taken over. All companies were trying to figure out how they could use the internet to improve their businesses. ?They put me onto the digital strategy team and while I was still exploring that a few things happened and I quit CTP with three other people and co-founded a consulting firm, Orbit-E. It captured the spirit of that age of the internet. Those were great days; lots of learning; four guys in a room trying to figure out what business we wanted to do. We got a funding of a $10 million.?

But the venture did not last too long?just about 18 months. ?If you remember, 2000-2001 was also a slow point in the industry. Our initial notion was too broad, too ambitious for a start-up.? All the four founders quit and Rajdeep joined Sapient.

?I joined as a senior manager, in 2001. The culture in Sapient was unique. There was respect for the individual. And, India was not just a back-office for Sapient. There was no throwing the work over the wall. When Sapient was setup in India, they sent 90 expats who stayed here for 3 to 5 years. Some of them have even stayed back till today, to set up the culture and ethos which was a major trait of Sapient. The work environment across the globe is very collaborative.?

When he joined Sapient, he was the 479th employee. ?Today, we have over 1,000 people. So, that?s a lot of growth in ten years. More importantly, Sapient India today constitutes 70% of our global workforce.?

Rajdeep is proud of the expertise that the company has built over the years. ?For example, if you look at it, we have people in Sapient India who are experts in energy trading. They are global experts. We work with Shell, Eon and British Petroleum and consult them on energy trading. We have people here who are experts in social media, in how to build multi channel ecommerce platforms for clients like Marks and Spencer?s, Sprint, Sony and other very big clients. The level of expertise that we have built out of India, is very different from what other companies have done.?

Five years back, its strategy was fairly non-differentiating. ?We did a lot of IT services pretty much more than any of the other big companies do, say like Accenture.

In the last five years, our business has taken two distinct shapes. They?re called Sapient Nitro and Sapient Global services. Sapient Nitro focuses on helping our clients largely in the retail/ consumer space, engage with their customers etc.?

This has worked well for Sapient and Rajdeep is enjoying his days at the helm. His early struggles have only toughened him up.