MadhavMohan
I am so looking forward to our reunion – in 25 years, each one of us has charted a unique course for our lives, but there obviously are so many similarities as well in our experiences, relationships, career and accomplishments.My life has been a fortunate one – rich in relationships, travel, experiences and work.
Right out of campus, I joined Bank of America in Delhi and enjoyed the next 7 years in helping create a retail bank. Moved to the nascent offshoring industry when Bank of America decided to sell its Indian franchise (a foolish decision if there ever was one – getting out of one of the fastest growing economies just as it exploding…).
Infosys offered me the first opportunity to explore a global career and the next few years in Belgium and Canada were a whole new learning for us as a young family. Rohini, an IIFT graduate, amazingly managed to find fantastic jobs in Brussels and Toronto at a time when trailing spouses didn't have it that easy. Pranav was born in Madras in 1996, but really grew up inBrussels as a native French speaker and then continued to be educated in French in Toronto until he was 9.
In Canada, I moved out of Infosys in 2003 to join a startup that was quickly acquired by iGATE, another offshoring services company and the next 3 years was spent in trying to revive a struggling company. Dealing with that adversity was very challenging, but in retrospect I think it helped mature me as wellas there is no better way to learn than failure. While at iGATE, we moved in late 2005 to Fremont in California.
Leaving iGATE in 2006, I spent the next 3 years at CSC and, in 2009, decided to scratch the proverbial itch and start my own company, in sports of all things. Definitely the best experience of my life and a hell of a roller coaster for the next couple of years. The focus of target54, my company, was to help grow golf in India by bringing the best coaches and golf services from the US. It was great fun and reasonably successful, but not making money(!) made me move back into the salaried world.
The last 5-6 years have been at TCS where I manage their Insurance practice in North America. Rohini has worked with Chevron for a number of years and we have just moved to Houston as she got a great new role with them. Pranav is in his 3rd year of undergrad at Babson College in Boston and setting himself up for a great career in finance.
Rohini and I have recently caught the running bug and have participated in a couple of half and full marathons and plan to do more of this in the future. Golf remains the activity of choice when my son and I are together and we enjoy traveling the world, playing the great courses in every continent.