Pradeep Gidwani
Spirited moves
What do Diageo, Moot Hennessy, Foster's, Red Bull and Carlsberg have in common in India? All these companies had Pradeep Gidwani, 45, play a role in setting them up. Gidwani, who recently left his role as Managing Director, Carlsberg India, is taking a break "for a month" and hopes to spend some time with his baby daughter.
What next? After playing the role of a serial entrepreneur for multinational drinks and beverages companies, Gidwani now wants to get into doing something himself. "I have a few ideas and I am a foodie at heart and I think I have the requisite skill-sets needed for a start-up and I don't think I'm too old, yet!" All that we can say to that is "Cheers!"
Revathi Advaithi
Power play
She is third in line to CEO Sandy Cutler at Eaton Corp., a Fortune 500 company, but nothing enthuses Reavthi Advaithi more than the global movement towards energy efficiency and sustainability. Advaithi, 42, is President (APAC—Electrical Sector), Eaton Corporation, and is based in Shanghai, China. She has her task cut out in India—curbing industrial losses for which Eaton provides solutions.
"India's efforts to curb such losses have not gone unnoticed and the country's unique difficulties will be the highlight of Eaton Corp.'s Indian operations in the coming year," she says while on a visit to Mumbai. A mechanical engineer from BITS Pilani and an MBA from Garvin School of International Business in Glendale, Arizona, Advaithi started her career at Xerox India in Chennai.
Her current stint at Eaton is a homecoming of sorts; she worked for the company from 1995-2002. Advaithi then quit to work at Honeywell, UK, for six years. She joined Eaton for a second stint in September 2008 and was assigned the role of President (APAC) from July 2009. A voracious reader, Advaithi now leads a business that had net sales of $2 billion in 2008 in the APAC region and $6.9 billion worldwide. And her top interest at the moment: Mastering Mandarin.
Sant Singh Chatwal
In a pickle over an award
Arguably the most famous Indian friend of the Clintons in the US, Padma awardee Sant Singh Chatwal, 64, is back in the news. In January 2008, when he was in India with a business plan, he had refused to comment on an alleged fraud involving an Indian bank and a CBI case thereafter.
"It is a closed chapter and history," is all he would tell us. Well, the closed chapter has come back to haunt him with voices against his Padma award getting louder.
Chatwal was then in India with plans to set up his chain of hotels in the country. The hotelier, a believer in yoga, talked of investing Rs 5,000 crore to own and manage around 25 hotels spread across 21 cities by 2011. Chatwal, it seems, continues to maintain his love for India despite all the controversies.
