Wednesday, November 3, 2010

[www.keralites.net] Studying under street light to CEO at 30 from India



From studying under the streetlights to CEO of a US firm
 

Kalyana Raman Srinivasan (Kal Raman)
 
Here is the rags-to-riches story of an extremely
talented boy from a small village in Tamil Nadu
who has risen to be the chief executive officer of a company in Seattle, US

It is also the story of how Kalyana Raman Srinivasan, who was so indigent that he had to study under a streetlight, but then managed to
score excellent marks, rose in life and became today's Kal Raman.

 At every turn in his life, he took the difficult path
and it turned out to be the right one and in the right direction. His rise to
the top is more dramatic than a thriller. Today, he is a very successful
entrepreneur and the founder-CEO of GlobalScholar. 

 Difficult childhood

 

Kal Raman was born and brought up in a small village
called Mannarakoil in Tirunelveli district of
Tamil Nadu. It was a comfortable normal middle class life for him and his
siblings as his father was a Tahasildar there.

 But the sudden death of his father at the age of 45
changed everything overnight. 

 Kal was 15 then. "My mother got a pension of Rs
420 a month and you can imagine how tough it is to educate four children and
feed five mouths with Rs 420?"

 Hi life changed dramatically after his father's death. The family moved from the rented house to a hut that had no
proper water supply or electricity. Kal Raman remembers, "All of us used to
study under the streetlight and, thank god, the streetlights used to work those
days! MGR (M G Ramachandran) was the chief
minister then. We had to sell the plates to buy rice to eat and my mother
used to give us rice in our hands. That bad was our situation."

 But his mother, who had studied till the 8th standard,
was very particular that her children studied. "All our relatives wanted
my elder brother to stop studying and take up the small job offered by the
government but my mother wanted him to continue studying."

 "Then they wanted me to learn typewriting and
shorthand so that I could get some job after the 10th  standard. But
mother said, 'My children are going to get the best
education I can offer. Education is our salvation.' She was my hero for her
vision and she still is my hero."

 What kept the family going? "We were sad but
because we accepted our fate, we were at peace with whatever that happened to
us. We knew our father would not come back to lift us up from poverty. We also
knew our salvation was a long way away."

 He didn't know why he used to tell his mother, "One day I will give you so much money that you will
not know what to do with it!" Years later, he did exactly that! 

 First turning point in life

 Kal Raman believes that God played a hand in all the
major turning points in his life. The first turning point in life was after his
12th standard. He got good marks in both the engineering and medicine entrance
exams, and for engineering, he got
admission at the Anna University in
Chennai while for medicine, it was in the Tirunelveli Medical College. 

 "While going in the bus with my mother to join
the medical college, I told her, "If I join for medicine here, the high
probability is that my life may begin and end in Tirunelveli.
I really want to see the world.' She agreed with my decision to go to Chennai
and join Anna University and study Electrical Engineering and Electronics."

 So, he stepped into a new world outside Tirunelveli,
and that was Chennai. Though he had got merit scholarship and a lot of good
people helped him pay the initial fee, the scholarship amount never used to
reach him regularly or on time. 

 "The mess fee was Rs 250 a month and I
used to be a defaulter in the mess at least six months in a year. Till you pay
the mess fee, you cannot eat in the mess. So, I used to live on day scholars'
lunch boxes and also use to fast. That is when I learnt to fast ! I must say a
lot of friends helped me with money and food
 Scarcity of money was so bad that he had
no money to buy food just before the final semester exams. When he gave his final semester exams, he had not eaten for a
day-and-a-half. "After finishing the exam, I almost fainted."

 The day after the exams came all the scholarship money
that was due and it was around Rs 5,000. "So, I went home a rich man and
that helped us repay some loans."

 First job

 Like opting for Chennai and joining Anna University
instead of a college in Tirunelveli, Kal Raman took another risk with his first
job also. His first job was with Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE), and he had a
choice of joining either Chennai or Mumbai.

 Although he knew nobody in Mumbai,
he chose the capital of Maharashtra.

 He remembered the first day. "It was interesting.
With bag and baggage, I went to the TCE office after taking a shower at the
railway station as I had no money to go to any hotel. After the first
introduction at the office, the manager noticed that I was wearing slippers to
the office. He called me and said, "I don't care which college you are
coming from but this is not acceptable. You should come in shoes
tomorrow."

 I said I couldn't come in shoes the next day and this
the manager construed as arrogance. "How could you talk like this?"
he asked me. I said, "Sir, it is not that I don't want
to, but I can't afford to buy shoes. Only after I get my first pay cheque, can
I buy shoes. Sir, I request you not to terminate my job because of this. I and
my family need this job."

 Shocked to hear the explanation, the manager asked, "Where are you staying?" and the
reply was, "Dadar Railway Station."

 So distressed was the manager to hear Kal speak that
he immediately released a month's salary in advance and also arranged for him
to be at his friend's place till he could find a place to stay.

 "He bought me a pair of shoes and those were my
first shoes. The next day, I sent Rs 1,500 from the advance to my mother."

 From electrical engineering to programming

 Kal's rise in career was meteoric in a short span of
time. Within a month, he got a chance to move to Bengaluru (then Bangalore) and also to
programming.

 Soon, he was in Chennai with Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS). Within a few months, he was sent to Edinburgh, UK.

 From Edinburgh,
his next stop was the United
States. In 1992, he went to the US as
an entry level contractor with Wal-Mart.
In two years, he was a director running a division. 

 

When he left Wal-Mart after six years, he
was a man running the information systems for the International Division of the
retail giant.

 In 1998, he joined drugstore.com

 Online Pharmacy as the chief
information officer and in
2001 at the age of 30, he was the CEO of the company. 

 He was at the right place at the right time. "God
was there at every step guiding me to take the right decisions. I was also
willing to take risks and tread new paths," Kal says.

 Starting GlobalScholar

 Philanthropist Mike Milken
who had donated more than a billion dollars to education, wanted to use
technology so that high quality education was accessible to ordinary people.

 Milken convinced Kal to join him. That was the time
Kal was building schools in his village for poor students. 

 In October 2007, GlobalScholar was launched targetting
both teachers and students by acquiring four companies -- National Scholar (USA), Classof1 (India), Excelsior (USA), and Ex-Logica (USA) -- that were into education.

 

"Three months after the launch, I travelled all
over the US, India, Singapore
and China
talking to teachers and companies and the public. I found that the only way to
impact education was by impressing teachers. The biggest scarcity in the world
is good teachers. We decided to help teachers with teaching practices and kids,
learning practices."

 Kal Raman decided to concentrate on the US market as the US is more advanced in using
technology. "They are also willing to pay money for technology. At
present, schools buy the material which can be used by teachers, students and
parents."

 

Today, they have 200 people working for GlobalScholar
in Chennai and 150 in the US.
The study material is prepared in the Chennai
office. 

 The company that was started with $50 million will have
in excess of $32 million and will generate $5 million of profits. In 2008, the
turnover of the company was Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) and in 2009, it was Rs
80 crore (Rs 800 million). In the current year it will be 150-160 crore (Rs
1.5-1.6 billion).

 "GlobalScholar is growing at 200 per cent every year. We have 1,000
schools and 10 million students, which is one out of 10 kids in the US, using our study material. This is almost 18 per cent of the US population. We are the fastest
growing education company in the US." 

 

GlobalScholar will soon introduce a pilot project in India and China. In the course of all this,
Kalyana Raman became Kal Raman. "The country gave me everything and took
half my name."

 Giving back to society

 Kal Raman is in India now for the Kumbhabhishekam
of the temple at his village Mannarkoil. "It is taking place after 500
years. It is the culmination of two-and-a-half years of work. I have spent more
than one and a half crore rupees (Rs 15 million) to renovate the temple and do the
Kumbhabhishekam. More than anything else, I have given jobs to all my friends
in the village who are masons and carpenters."

 Other than this, he has also adopted all the
orphanages around his village and he takes care of around 2,000
kids, some of whom are physically handicapped. 

 

"I feel if I can educate these
children, eventually we can make a difference in the society. We
also help 100 children in their higher education. Around my village, everyone
knows that if a kid who studies well cannot afford to pay fees, he has to only
come to my house; his education will be taken care of."

 "I do not do this as charity; its my
responsibility. I am giving something back to the society that fed me, taught
me, and took care of me and gave me hopes. "


 

From the NET

Nandakumar


www.keralites.net   


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