Krishnan Thyagarajan talks like a man possessed. It is very evident that he leads his life and work with passion, and that somehow reflects in his every move. The managing director of Quest Software India looks fit as a fiddle, not one bit weathered down by the 23 years of work at the highest corporate level.

Quest Software, headquartered in Los Angeles, is a top player in virtualisation and enterprise system management software. Krishnan is driving the Indian operations and is also keeping an eye on growing the business to the rest of the South Asia region.

But his corporate learning curve happened largely at Microsoft where he spent 13 years. ?Microsoft prepared me for everything. Even in my current job, I use techniques that I learned at MS. I got to meet Bill Gates too and had the chance to interact with him quite closely. Those are great memories.?

Krishnan, a south Indian by origin, was raised in Delhi. ?That hybrid culture has given me the ability to straddle two different worlds. And that has helped me enormously in my career. Hence I never found it tough to relocate anywhere. I even worked in Saudi Arabia for a Dell distributor during the early part of my career, and I could cope.?

The IIM-Ahmedabad post-graduate had worked for NIIT too during the initial phase of his career. ?My NIIT days were like an extension of my management days. I worked for the software exports division, and had to primarily crunch data.?

His big break in Microsoft came soon after. ?Microsoft was a life changing experience. Quality of the people, standards of deliberation and action taken were all of the highest level. The business reviews conducted at MS were the toughest I have encountered. There used to be two reviews?mid-year and annual?and there was immense scrutiny and one had to be really prepared for those meetings,? says Krishnan.

?There would be pages and pages of complex data, but the way the top bosses narrowed it down and took effective decisions used to take my breath away. Life in those days was like being on drugs.?He also had a chance to meet Bill Gates himself. ?I clearly remember the day. It was March 1, 1997. My boss told me that I had to present to him just a few bullet points on each slide, and make those bullets appear on screen one after another, and not all of them at one go. That?s because he told me that Gates will be able to read all the bullets at one go, and someone trying to explain to him points one after another would be wasting his time.?

?I did it just the way my boss asked me to. Gates kept rocking mildly in his chair, and would stop you at various points just to clarify. I found that we was able to read my entire presentation even before I could start to explain anything. He was able to read the points on the slide, break it down in his mind, and also give solutions on the spot, even as I barely finished each slide.?

?But we got stuck at one point. He asked how China was a bigger market for PC than India, though India knew the English language better. We tried answering that question in our own way. But he didn?t look convinced, but then decided not to grill us further and moved on. Maybe he realised we did not have a good answer.?

Krishnan later moved to Singapore and then to the US while being at MS. He then decided to return to India when it became a financially viable option. ?The work environment here was getting better as well. So I relocated.?

He switched over to Quest. He felt that the company was on the verge of doing some great things out of India. ?It was a much smaller company, but it was exciting. I had a chance to drive Quest?s Indian operations into something significant.?

?My ambition is to drive Quest to become a leader in the enterprise IT management space in the next 2-3 years,? says Krishnan.

Quest Software is into enterprise smart systems management, helping enterprises manage their IT environment by improving productivity and cutting costs. It has products to manage complex application environments, increase database performance, simplify Windows management and optimise virtual environments.

Outside of work, Krishnan has time for cricket. He loves to form teams in the organisations that he has worked for to play cricket and encourages others to do the same. He even has a bat owned by Dhoni. Krishnan believes that sports brings out leadership skills and also build once character. ?It?s also a big stress reliever,? he says.