Mr. Amit Kakar comes through as someone who has an acute acumen in whatever he takes up to learn. He has a very controlled and measured approach and he loves to associate himself closely with his team. He was the 1st employee of TRPC in India and has quite adeptly been at the helm of its transition. And with a heart to go the distance, he adds meaning to the old saying – “No road is ultimate and no victory is final”
A graduate from Bhagat Singh College affiliated to the DU, Mr. Kakar landed up in IIP M despite no concrete plans totake up management education. He has the highest regards for IIP M for grooming him into a confident man, as prior to that, he was not good at public speaking. The confidence of speaking that he gained helped him to start interacting, develop expertise on matters, meeting people, and understanding corporate cultures even better. He was always more inclined towards an involvement in business rather than just a job. Later, he got his first job offer from a company that was into retirement plan through a JV with Patni. He grabbed the offer and went on to start many new things with the JV as retirement operations was a totally new and untapped market back in those years. “IBM wanted to do it as Fidelity and Patni were also entering this market”, he adds.
As a result, Mr. Kakar brought along a team of individuals on board and they initiated many things that had never happened in the company before. “Slowly and surely, I gained the confidence of the USA and Indian counterparts, and they started investing in him”, he adds with belief. Mr. Kakar was so determined as an individual that he started learning new things on his own and then delivered those learnings to his team through training sessions. “I also got an offer to work in USA for 3-6 years, but I did not want to leave India”. He was also offered other roles at IBM, but finally after a two year stay, he decided to move to Patni Computers. “They offered me a large role and asked me to look after the entire transition in retirement plan”, says Mr. Kakar. He was also asked to rope in major clients. Mercer was doing the outsourcing work for Patni back then, and he also got a chance to work at Mercer’s USA office for a couple of months. During his 2.5 years stay at Patni, he enjoyed their work life. “I had the best team and it was really a wonderful experience for me at Patni”
TRP C then moved in to the market and they wanted Mr. Kakar to set up their office. Mr. Kakar was a little circumspect about this as setting up a completely new office in India seemed like a difficult task. After giving it a lot of thought for about 2-3 months, along with some cajoling from Mr. Patrick Hale – who is currently the Director for Client Services, Mr. Kakar went forward and accepted the offer. “I was their first employee in November 2007”, he reminds us. He built the entire team after this and it was his core team through out. “They felt very optimistic working with me and every single person was hired by me”, adds Mr. Kakar. Being a VP, he was part of every single activity that was done to set up this office – construction to recruitment. “Since then, year after year, we kept on adding people”, he adds. TRP C will be completing five years soon and they plan to have 120 people on board by the end of this year. Mr. Kakar also holds the President and CEO of TRP C, Mr. John Kopra very highly. He feels that in the next 10 years, TRP C will expand through different ventures, and soon, TRP C will be setting up an office in Chennai. His involvement with TRP C from the scratch means that he likes to get involved with people irrespective of their levels. “I believe that the closer I stay to my people, the longer they will stay with TRP C”, affirms Mr. Kakar. And this is clearly evident from the fact that TRP C has seen almost zero attrition since 2008. “My team has the same vision as that of mine and that is the reason for TRP C’s success”, he adds
On the positioning of TRP C in the India market, Mr. Kakar feels that TRP C is the best in terms of knowledge base and the employees would feel it once they leave for other companies in the same market. He adds, “TRP C tries to be best in terms of compensation packages to reduce attrition as investing in people leads to retaining them”. Currently their focus is to enter the Chinese market by the 2nd quarter of 2013. Globally, almost all companies according to him work on retirement plans. “The idea is to get your employee’s income secured for retirement in order to benefit both the employer and the employee from the company stand point and taxation stand point”, Mr. Kakar explains. In life, he has had the best association with his wife, Ms. Manisha Kakar. “She has always helped me in my work and has taken charge of the entire operations, which has helped me enhance the business”, adds Mr. Kakar with bubbling energy. They have a daughter named Saisha, and are well connected as a family.
In closing, Mr. Kakar personally thanks IIPM, the management team at TRP C, Ms. Manisha Kakar, Mr. Patrick Hale, and Mr. Arun Mittal, for their support and inspiration.
Cult wishes that Mr. Kakar keeps his track of conquests for TRP C and they both become a success story to be remembered for ages to come.
