?People are at the heart of the matter?

Rajeev Kapoor has a way with people. The president & chief executive officer of Fiat India Automobiles also has a way with words. The combination is lethal enough to floor anybody. Most in his company are impressed with his quick wit and charm. He can also put people at ease with his nature. It?s something that sets him up apart from regular bosses.

?I am not autocratic,? says the 57-year-old father of two. ?Mine is an open-door policy, quite literally. People can walk in and speak to me anytime. I try and make myself as accessible as possible. At the same time, I try giving space to my people to work independently. Try giving them the wings to fly. Of course, I am there when they need me.?

This laissez faire attitude implies that Kapoor doesn?t mind sipping tea with his workers at the factory floor. He is not averse to mingling with people across rank and file. ?Why should I discriminate?? he asks. ?We are all part of the same family.?

The son of a police officer, Kapoor, the second of three brothers and one sister, realises that the strength of an organisation lies in its people. ?I learnt that all along through my 33-year-long professional life,? he says. ?People are at the heart of the matter. Let?s face it. If you know how to manage your people, that?s half the battle won.?

A mechanical engineer from the Regional Engineering College (REC), Kurukshetra, Haryana, Kapoor began his career in a heavy engineering firm ISGEC in Yamunanagar, near Delhi, in 1976. ?I was picked up straight from college as part of a campus recruitment drive. So yes, I didn?t go through the initial hiccups of finding a job. I was fortunate to land one while in college.?

But that was also because Kapoor did well in his studies at REC. He was involved in a number of extra-curricular activities at the same time like debating, shooting etc. ?My father always encouraged us to do different things and not just restrict ourselves to our books. We kids adopted that in full measure and tried making the best of whatever came our way. For instance, I pursued horse-riding when I was in school.?

At the same time, Kapoor?s father ensured that the kids never lost their sense of discipline or hard work. ?That?s the advantage of being the offspring of a policeman,? he says in a lighter vein. This sense of discipline is something that Kapoor says has been a valuable lesson to him and his siblings. ?When you are disciplined, you carry that attitude wherever you go,? he says.

He did, especially, in his worklife. But there were more lessons to be learnt. ?I?ve fond memories of my days with my first organisation. That was my first job, and honestly, I had miles to go. My boss was a gentleman called L C Lamba. He would always tell me that there was no harm in dirtying my hands. I was running a machine shop then. Mr Lamba would always say that learning an office job is easy, but being on the shop floor is tough. That was important.? The advice has stood him in good stead.

Kapoor eventually moved to another engineering firm, a chemical engineering company called Nuchem in Faridabad (Haryana) in 1982, and then heading straight to an automotive ancillary unit called Talvaross in 1988. He made a ?big switch? in 1992 joining Gillette Corporation, and then heading to Hero Honda in 2001.

In 2008, he took over as the chief executive of the 50:50 joint venture between Fiat and Tata Motors. Along the way, Kapoor has built a strong expertise in operations management. ?I was the operations-in-charge at Hero Honda. Nobody can fool me in that department,? he says quite matter-of-factly.

Kapoor, in fact, is putting all these skills to good use in his current assignment, where the motto is to be efficient. ?Fiat hasn?t had the best of times in the Indian marketplace,? he says. ?We want to get it right here. India is an important market for the joint venture. My job is to make sure that happens.?

How he?s doing this is by benchmarking the plant to the best practices that exist at Tata Motors and Fiat anywhere else, cutting non-value-added activities, sourcing components locally and keeping a stringent check on quality.

The first Indian to take over the top job (Fiat, for the record, has had Italian chief executives in the past), Kapoor ironically was neither a Tata nor a Fiat appointee. ?I am neutral,? he says. ?I met executives from both Tata Motors and Fiat. Both the companies were involved in my appointment.?

A joint appointment implies that Kapoor has the tough task of balancing the interests of both partners, of taking them along at every step of the way. He?s doing it quite gamely.

He says, ?Many joint ventures fail not because of financial problems but because of communication issues. My job is to ensure there is no breakdown in communication between the two partners. They understand the issues at hand and are equally involved in it. It?s not easy. But I manage doing it. I have been given the freedom to run this JV. I am expected to perform. That?s it.?

It indeed is. Kapoor seems to be doing a satisfactory job, given the way he has managed to take the joint venture forward in the last one year.

?We relaunced the Palio, the B-segment car, in June last year, following it up with the launch of the CBU Fiat 500, which is a mini car, in July. This car is a big hit with celebrities in the country because of its style and finish. It?s a car imported fully-built. Then came the Linea in January this year and in the third quarter of this year we will launch the Grande Punto,? he says. The objective of the JV, he says, is to produce B and C-segment cars.

The Grande Punto like the Linea has been a success overseas clocking good numbers in the markets. Kapoor makes no bones about the fact that motor-car enthusiasts in the country are waiting for the Punto to be launched here. ?It?s something we are looking forward too as well,? he says.

Coming back to the Linea, in terms of sales, the product is already averaging about 1,500 units per month at the moment. ?In February, we did about 1,200 units because of production constraints. We should be able to do better going forward,? he says.

For that production has to be efficiently managed at the Ranjangaon facility in Pune where Tata as well as Fiat cars are manufactured. ?It is a state-of-the-art production facility. We can go up to 500,000 powertrains or engines and 200,000 cars. That?s the kind of production capacity it has. But we are implementing the first phase which envisages a production capacity of 160,000 cars and 350,000 powertrains. We should be able to hit these figures in two to three years once more launches from us and Tata Motors happen.?

Some portion of the cars produced are also being exported to markets such as South Africa at the moment. ?Depending on the appetite and market conditions, exports will go up progressively. As you are aware, these are not the best of times for exports. There is a demand contraction worldwide,? says Kapoor.

When not discussing market strategy, Kapoor enjoys spending time with his family based in Faridabad. ?It?s not easy. I am based in Pune, my family comprising my sons Rajat, 29, and Shishir, 17, as well as wife Shashi are in Faridabad. It?s tough. But I try meeting them whenever I can, at least two weekends in a month.?

The well-traveled CEO never tires of relating his experiences in different countries. ?Oh! I have travelled all over the place. It?s been fun.?