Over a career spanning 15 years, Shreeram Gomatam, 36, has switched jobs nine times. All this just to meet challenges head-on. And his singular focus on his career has met with remarkable success. From a hotel management trainee he is now the vice-president of Countrywide Financial, a Fortune 500 financial services company.
Back in 1992, after graduating in hotel management from Mangalore University, he took up a teaching assignment with the same institute and also worked as a supervisor with one of the attached hotels. There were two reasons for doing this, says Gomatam. One, there were not too many job options around and secondly he wanted to be with his girlfriend (now wife) who was a year junior.
Shifting to Delhi the next year was a planned move. “We were getting married and our parents were settled there,” says Gomatam, who joined Hotel Connaught as a management trainee on a monthly stipend of Rs 2,000. Those were difficult days as both his professional and personal life had entered a new phase and he was just 22. The environment at work was much more competitive and so was the pressure.
A year of working in various departments and Gomatam was ready to take on the role as assistant manager, food and beverages for Rs 4,500 a month. “What I enjoyed most was that each moment involved critical decision making,” he says. It was around this phase of his career that he realised his skills lay in managing people and multitasking.
In October 1994, he moved to Hotel Imperial on same designation but a better salary of Rs 7,000. The move led to his getting exposed to a variety of high-end tourists. By February 1997, he was an outlet manager but he also knew he had to make a move. “I had gained the experience and I needed more responsibilities,” he says. He moved to Ahmedabad’s upcoming suitesonly Shaleen Hotel as food and beverages manager. Gomatam organised food festivals, flew in chefs and tried all the tricks in the book to bring in customers.
But when six months later an opportunity to study further arrived, he dumped it all to move to the United Kingdom for a degree in marketing. At 27, Gomatam hardly had any savings. He sold some of his wife’s jewellery, took loan from relatives for the two-year course at the University of Central Lancashire. The sabbatical opened a whole new world of career options for Gomatam. “The IT sector was expanding and I could look beyond the hospitality sector now,” he says.
But jobs didn’t actually fall into his lap. Lack of exposure to any other industry proved to be a hurdle. He returned to India to join Hotel Hyatt as banquet sales manager for Rs 3.2 lakh a year and soon realised marketing was quite different from managing. “It took time and I worked extra hard to ensure I delivered what I promised,” he says. When 9/11 happened, Gomatam knew the hospitality sector would suffer the most. In October 2001, he joined Daksh, an outsourc -ing outfit, as manager operations to lead and motivate teams.
It was not as big a shift as it seemed for Gomatam as the fundamentals— man management and servicing skills—remained the same. Having gained the basic experience, he decided to join a bigger brand in the same field for further career growth. “Growth comes with mobility that’s well thought out and planned,” he says.
He joined Wipro Spectramind. “It was my best decision ever,” says Gomatam, who moved at the same salary and designation. There were many processes in place and the learning was very enriching. He soon got his due and in January 2006 he was promoted to the post of assistant vice-president with a pay packet of Rs 20 lakh a year. He soon moved to a more challenging job when he joined Genpact to set up its Jaipur centre. But his tenure there was a short one. Countrywide Financial offered him an opportunity to manage its operations from Mumbai as vice-president.
The entire canvas of management is more global for Gomatam now. “My task is to diversify the business while managing the people,” he says. This is not the final destination for him, who still puts in over 14 hours a day. “A start-up when I am ready for it,” he says about his plans. But till then he’s busy acquiring newer skills. This time not for yet another new career, but for a new business.
