Despite being the Managing Director of Bain Capital and a board member of Tata Sons Limited, Amit Chandra’s business acumen and knowledge of banking and equity is not what awed the Rotarians last Tuesday; it was Chandra’s incessant drive to give and better the world that brought the assembly to applause throughout the meeting. When asked about...
Last Tuesday afternoon, Rotarians were privileged to witness a panel discussion between legendary stock market expert Bharat Shah and accomplished macro trends expert Manish Chokhani about the current state of the stock market and the prospect of investing in a seemingly mature bull market. Moderated by Rtn. Dipan Mehta, the discussion was an informative dialogue...
According to Uday Kotak, the Tuesday speaker, Indian corporate governance can be measured by four quadrants. To most Indians these quadrants are already known, but from the speaker’s narration, they were recalled in a manner that will definitely make them hard to forget. “The top right quadrant is the Rama quadrant,” as we all know Lord...
The week before last, we heard Deepak Parekh’s perspective on the government’s development efforts in our city. As the chairman of the Housing Development Finance Corporation, he was very optimistic about the government's plan for our city. The same optimism percolated into the speech of Niranjan Hiranandani, the speaker last Tuesday. As you well know, he...
Deepak Parekh is the Chairman of the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC). By now, the corporation has financed over six million homes. Therefore, when he was presented the Citizen of Mumbai Award, it was a Rotarian who suggested, “He should be honoured not only as a citizen of Mumbai, but as a citizen of India.” As...
Dilip Doshi, former Indian cricketer, was invited to the weekly meeting last Tuesday, entrusted to share his thoughts on a very topical issue: Ethics. Although the subject has been well dissected by some of the greatest philosophers, Doshi’s perspective was rather refreshing. His sporting and business career inspired some very interesting parallels between sportsmanship and...
Should it not be assumed that a speaker, given a keen audience, a good thirty minutes to speak, and a buffet lunch at the Taj Mahal Hotel, is a little too complacent about the honour if he begins his speech by saying, “I will be a little short because I have to catch a flight...
The Tuesday meeting began not with a speaker as is typical, but a technical glitch that made the experience of singing the national anthem a little more heroic, for we had to keep in tune without being guided by the backing track. Till the last moment, many were unsure whether or not to assume that the...
Sandokan, by the second half of the 19th century, was a young Indian prince diminished of his title and kingdom by British imperialists. To avenge this disastrous turn of events, he made constant attacks on the British forces, in his new avatar as the captain of a den of pirates. Although Sandokan is a character...
Last Tuesday, the pulpit was shared by two speakers from different walks of life, but both seemed to have tread a path that only passion can help us navigate. The speakers were Pooja Dhingra and Zoru Bathena. The latter is the BMC’s biggest nightmare, and the former a young entrepreneur who introduced a Parisian culinary...
Ambi Parameswaran has spent over thirty years in advertising, a fact confirmed by his enlightening account of the industry in a short thirty minutes. A career spanning so many years has obviously given him a chance to reminisce, and us the pleasure of understanding his perspective on the changing trends. A lot of what he shared...
“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me,” was a line lent to us by the great American poet, Robert Frost. However, in the context of Bharat Dabholkar’s experiences in advertising, this quote makes for the perfect adman’s prayer. Not just because it is short, concise, and...