A career hewn on one’s own conviction and calibrated to avoid stagnation. Lupin Ltd?s managing director Kamal K Sharma has done it ever since he was a student of IIT Kanpur. Today at 60 years of age, Sharma has chartered out the next curve of his career and also what could be possibly the next after that. ?I have always been confident that I will create my own sun wherever I go.? No flamboyance as he says this.
The first fork on the road came about when Sharma was a fresh graduate at IIT Kanpur. Most students were preparing to wing their way to the West, the US in particular. ?I found before me the same choice. My favourite professor at IIT, Mr Seshadri was keen that I stay on and pursue research. My project on blue-green algae was much-loved by all. But I had three job offers and decided to take up one.? Sharma?s father wanted him to go abroad. ?But education abroad did not excite me as I did not want to follow the herd.?
His professor, Mr Seshadri was disappointed with Sharma?s choice. ?Years later when he met my wife, Radha and me at a party, he told her, ?Your husband is an excellent researcher but more interested in making money,?? recalls Sharma. Wasn?t it tough to take the decision to stay put in India at the age of 21 in the face of much experienced people who wanted him to go abroad? Sharma says his father thought he was ?missing out an opportunity?, but ?I wanted to create something of my own.?
Ever since he opted to take up his first job offer, Sharma has been steering the wheel of a career to pit stops that he has wanted and moved on when the excitement of creating something new has been met. ?I have shifted jobs when I found that there were no new learnings for me.? As Sharma looks back on his career path, he recalls fondly his work experiences. There is a freeze-moment of gratitude when he goes back to those moments and people he has worked with.
Working at Fibreglass Pilkington, his first job, Sharma was given an assignment to go to the UK to draft certain projects. After eight months of working on the project, it was phased out as the UK Board did not approve of it. The boredom set in for Sharma and he decided to equip himself with an MBA at Mumbai. It was also time to move on to something challenging which came his way at his next workplace at Mettur Beardsell. ?My MBA got delayed but I got an exciting work profile as a works manager.? Just 28 years old, Sharma was the youngest there and had six managers reporting to him. ?It was a massive task for there was a lockout and I had to lead from the front. It was baptism by fire.? Here Sharma faced opposition, at times it was chaotic, scary, anxiety-ridden, albeit short-lived. He says of the experience, ?If you don?t give up, you establish a new norm.?
At every job shift, Sharma not only learnt new experiences but also came away with new understandings that equipped him for a new challenge. When D B Gupta, chairman, Lupin (then Lupin Labs) gave an offer, Sharma took it up as it was about creating technologies and structures. ?Lupin Labs was a nondescript place and I was advised against it by friends. But I was impressed with Mr Gupta?s offer.?
Coming to Lupin then was at first a culture shock but the encouraging part was that ?No? was not an answer here if the objective was laid out clear. Lupin was a dynamic company not like MNCs which are limited. ?His UK stint at his first job had given him these learnings. ?There was a lot of toil and hard work at Lupin, but difficult goals were set and accomplished. Pharma is knowledge-intensive and Lupin didn?t enjoy a brand equity. So there was a lot of work to be done to grow the system.? Though Sharma rose to become the MD of Lupin Chemicals and the company made the largest ever investment in the pharma business of about Rs 100 crore in its plant at Tarapur, Sharma began to feel saturated. ?I began to feel very in-bred, the monarch of all I surveyed.?
It was after over decades of working that Sharma decided to go abroad for his studies to rejuvenate himself. An advanced management programme from Harvard Business School gave him a fresh set of frustrations and challenges ?underwriting in economics. ?When I made a decision to leave, I told Gupta about it and he was nice to me and said, if I were to stay back, I?d be made the MD.? After being at a job for 16 years, how challenging is it to uproot from a top position and take roots elsewhere? ?I did not change jobs for the sake of a change. When there was no scope for reinvention and creation, I looked for fresh challenges.?
Sharma registered for a Phd (Economics) at IIT Mumbai, and while pursuing it, joined RPG Life Sciences, as the president and chief executive officer. ?The work there was a fantastic experience. I was competing with the best on the board of nine members and all of them were of the highest calibre and pedigree. It is an opportunity I am grateful for. I got to learn, relearn and reinvent?driving the drivers and lessons in organic leadership. It taught me how to induce people to think and have great powers ?beyond the obvious; which was both interesting and challenging and conceptually more superior to Lupin.?
After eight years at RPG, a call from Gupta had Sharma pondering over his return to Lupin. Two years of thought and Sharma came back to join as the MD, with the firm belief that ?the future of tomorrow was in developing an intensive repository of knowledge ? Gupta?s plans gave him that confidence.? Lupin was at Rs 212 crore when they started and the company is reaching the USD 1 bn mark now; about Rs 2,770 crore. ?This equals to five times growth in profit. Organically also, the company is growing and will sustain this growth through the downturn.?
About his vision for the company, Sharma says that he is a growth entreprenuer. ?Growth entrepreneurs find growing businesses to be an intoxicating experience. They like to reach a peak, then go to another and write a script for their next phase of growth. This is currently being done in the form of a vision for Lupin for 2013.? It is too early to spell it out for it is being finetuned, says Sharma.
In his single-minded focus to constantly upgrade his education and looks for new job challenges, has his family had to take a second place? Sharma nods his head. ?In one?s quest to improve one?s career, wily nily one?s family life gets affected. No matter how much one tries to create a balance, there is a feeling that one could have spent some more time with the children when they were growing up. But marrying right goes a long way in filling up these absences,? he says smiling.?When the children were young, there were no time for vacations as I was busy at work. Later, they were busy studying professional courses. So the vacations never fell in place. But I stay in touch with them by talking to them everyday.? He says, he cannot take ?credit? for the way his children have turned out ?because my wife has given them a sense of values?. ?I can?t tell you why but I was always confident they would turn out right and it has happened just that way.?
Sharma also teaches at IIT Management School on tech forecasting and assessment, leadership and vision, managerial effectiveness and skills.
?I am 60 and can work for another 10 years from now”. But when he is through with that, there are plans in place. ?I would like to direct PhD students on a new body of knowledge.?
On the way down the elevator from the Lupin office, one meets a Lupin employee and asks him about Sharma. ?He is a lovable person,? he says. I had not revealed my identity. ?Sharma is very inspiring,? said another.
?He never loses his temper and never talks down to anyone.? Sharma?s peers and teachers were proved wrong. He was indeed on the right path on the courage of his convictions.