“You don’t choose your jobs, jobs choose you”, this is the attitude with which Mr. Suresh Kalra a pedigree of the 1998 batch of The Indian Institute of Planning and Management has made a strong mark in the industry. A passionate individual and an achiever by nature he has established an excellent track record of orchestrating growth and profits in a highly competitive market. With over thirteen years of experience in the Industrial & chemical sectors he has meticulously crafted a niche for himself. The foundation of his business development skills were laid back in his school days. He completed his schooling from the Kendriya Vidyalaya where he got ample opportunities to interact with all kind of students. This is where he understood that people have varied mindsets and the only logical and practical methodology to deal with everyone is to have an open minded approach. Post schooling he went on to complete his mechanical engineering. By now, Mr. Kalra had it clear in his mind that he wanted to get into the management side. Well this decision was certainly something which worked for him and soon Mr. Suresh Kalra joined IIPM to pursue his MBA in Marketing.
It is very important for an individual to move out of his or her comfort zone and grab each & every opportunity
This was the first step taken towards his path of successes.
He flagged off his career with a French Oil giant “Total” where primarily he was responsible for providing technical services to the domestic market as far as usage of industrial lubricants were concerned. He thoroughly enjoyed his work and was also given the responsibility of training the graduate engineers who were coming on board. After spending about three years he moved on to join “Chevron” where he had the opportunity to build his portfolio. He worked there as an Area Manager for North and West India and also as the Country Manager for operations in Nepal. At every point in his career, he realized that to make the best of the opportunities at hand, one has to follow a combination of hard and smart work. He got hands on experience in handling domestic markets as well as international markets. With over five years of International working experience at “Grace” he led a team of 8 nationalities handling business in 12 countries within the South & South East Asia region. Well, this provided the perfect platform for Mr. Kalra, to be at Valvoline Cummins where he is working as the Assistant Vice President & Head for Commercial and Industrial Business. He has had a career which was slightly on a different path as compared to a conventional MBA graduate specializing in Marketing. Starting from technical and then graduating to techno commercial sales, and then marketing and finally handling commercial as well industrial business, it surely has not been an easy ride for him, although with his hard work and passion he has made it look quite simple.
It is often believed that if one is at the right place, well from a career’s perspective the right organization, half the battle is one. But then, a thought needs to be spared to think about how to win the balance half of the battle. The answer to this question is what inherent qualities an individual gets to the table when he or she has become a part of the “right organization”. In Mr. Kalra’s case it was the comfort with which he dealt with people and mostly existing and potential clients. This is the quality which differentiates him from his contemporaries. It is very important for an individual to move out of his or her comfort zone and grab each and every learning opportunity available. It could be from ones friends, peers, and people outside the organization. Another important point which is ignored by the fresh blood entering the job market post their MBA’s is that, if they get an opportunity to work in different locations they should go ahead and grab that option. ften people try to take the easy way out and not look at exploring options other than their home towns. According to Mr. Kalra the amount of learning and understanding the pulse of the organization only happens if these internal barriers are not present in ones mind.
“Those were the best days of my life”, is a popular number by Bryan Adams and the most heard statement when ever an individual gets a chance to talk about their graduation and post graduation days. Comparing the two Mr. Kalra pursued his mechanical engineering from a college which was totally dominated by men, the only thing he did was study, study and only study. On the other hand IIPM according to him was a different ball game all together. He liked the culture of IIPM which was very open and offered a lot of challenges. Incidentally he gelled well with the culture of IIPM. He remembers almost all the lectures but one which is almost fresh in his memory is a subject called “Beyond the Principals of Management” taken by Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri. He thoroughly enjoyed and cherished each and every moment spent at IIPM, be it the classes or spending time at the Dhaba eating South Indian food outside the campus. For him time at IIPM was a mix of fun and serious work and this balance was well maintained throughout the two years. He feels that the professors at IIPM during his time were very interactive. It is essential to build a rapport with ones professors to ensure learning is at its best. This can only be possible if the student takes that extra step to bond and interact with the professor. In Mr. Karla’s case he did exactly this, his interaction with his mentors and professors are still there in his mind and he gives a lot of credit for his success to these relationships formed at IIPM.
A good leader or a manager according to Mr. Kalra is a person who strikes a perfect balance between long term vision and short term targets. To ensure that day to day functioning is smooth a leader must ensure that his subordinates are engaged in their respective tasks and also do not stop enjoying their work. As the popular adage goes, “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy”, Mr. Kalra makes it a point that this does not happen to his team. Work is fun and that is the kind of atmosphere he has built around his team. There are celebrations at the work place, be it birthdays or achievement of targets, everything is celebrated. His objective is to utilize his cross cultural adaptability, technical expertise, balanced leadership & safety for all attitudes to deliver the desired results. Being a part of the Lubricant Industry for quite a while now, Mr. Kalra feels that opportunities and threats are two sides of a coin. Specifically talking about Valvoline, he says that the biggest point against them is their late entry into the Indian market and also competing with huge PSU’s who have been in existence since ages. But he never takes a step backward in competing with them and is rather confident in making a strong mark in the Lubricant Industry. Therefore whenever his organization enters a segment, they go ahead with a target to become at least a part of the top league. The biggest strength of Valvoline is that it is fairly a young organization and this brings in a lot of positive attitude and zeal to achieve more. With this belief Valvoline wishes to replicate its global presence in India.
On a personal note Mr. Kalra is fond of traveling for pleasure. The reasons he loves traveling so much is that he is so occupied with his work that it acts as a stress buster. He is passionate about his work and is quite happy with the way life has turned up for him. When away from work he ensures that he stays in touch with his friends using various social networking sites. His wife, Trupti, is also from an engineering background and is associated with Hewitt. They spend quality time ensuring a smooth work life balance is maintained. He has a 10 year old son, Satwik and Mr. Kalra goes out his way to give his due attention.
