After finishing the Electrical Engineering program at IIT Bombay in 1974, Nandu worked in Tata Electric R & D for 3 years. There was a Minz computer which he used to work on during those times. One boring day, he loaded a program and whilst it executed, he decided to use that time to do a PGDM at IIM Calcutta. He confirms that he did indeed study at Joka and not the old campus which was near ISI, Kolkatta. The professors at Joka did their best to make a manager out of him, but his heart continued to be in technology. He rejoined the engineering industry after IIM Calcutta. L & T’s switchgear division had decided that they should diversify into computing. Nandu accepted the offer, hoping to jump onto that bandwagon. Two years of glorified clerking later, he realized that the L & T dons would take a decade more to make up their minds. Hitching bandwagons, he was back with the Tata group – this time not with the ancient Tata Electric, but with the new kid on the block – TCS.

In 1981, he was employee # 200 at TCS. His first project was related to cheque reconciliation at Bank of Baroda. The program was developed on the punch-card reading Burrough’s machine at TCS. An act as simple as getting a clean compile, ended up taking 3 days! A good project manager was one who was pally with the operator who fed in punch cards and who could put your cards in before others.

TCS, acknowledging his project ‘management’ skills, gave him on onsite project in New York. The client was in airline ticketing. The client had installed machines at airports which were directly linked to the servers in Manhattan. Nandu was thrilled as he could end up using the modern Tandem computer instead of the Baba Adam Burroughs of India. Even in those times, being Indian was considered an adequate qualification to be a computer doctor. Nandu remembers those times as something akin to the Wild West – there were hardly any set processes. He shudders when he remembers that every user in his team had a superadmin password..

The stint with the airline industry, led him to his next project, this one again with an airline – but on the diametrically opposite side of the globe. Cathay Pacific asked TCS to work on a material control system for their aircraft spares. The Hongkong hangars where Nandu worked carried more than 200,000 spare parts. This project lasted 3 years, after which Nandu returned back to India. TCS then entrusted him with improving its internal processes – and he ended up heading the quality function at the company.

In 1989, an ex TCS colleague, Ravi Apte, was given the assignment of setting up Citibank’s tech office in India, Citibank Overseas Software Ltd. He roped in Nandu to join the startup. The initial mandate was to work on internal projects of Citi worldwide. Citi then was run on very entrepreneurial lines, where country managers ruled their fiefdoms. This lead to an IT mayhem; there were 65 versions of a single software that existed in the Citi ecosystem. Nandu had to run around to country heads to convince them to outsource IT work to COSL.

Taking advantage of this somewhat chaotic situation, COSL would, on the sly, also take up work for other clients. He remembers working on a cheque clearing system for a bank in Jamaica. The bank gave him a carte blanche – and then he realized that all the Finance gyan received at Joka was not helping too much. He did Banking 101 all over again – and came up with a highly restructured cheque clearing operation for the bank. Moved the bank from a single location clearing system to a decentralized one. Asked for, and got NCR encoders to aid this process. This project gave him the confidence to look at the bigger picture of peopleware, which resides outside of both hardware and software.

In the entrepreneurial Citibank India, the bosses realized that there was moolah to be made in the inefficiencies of cheque clearing. Outstation cheques would take as much as 15 days to clear in those days. The cash management group at Citi, using a simple tool of couriers, would courier all outstation cheques to the local city – and get them cleared the same day. They promised customers funds in 3 day’s time – which they could easily achieve – and still benefit with 2 days of float.

Nandu’s interests over the years have mostly revolved around payment systems. He headed the Payments group at I-Flex, the reincarnated COSL. He quit in 2008, around the time Oracle was coming in as the new owner. He is now an angel investor. He has invested in a Personal Finance Management company and another which deals in micro-services. On the side also runs an internet classical music radio station – shadamadhyam.com

So what are the learnings that he would like to share with the next generation?

• Develop a personal brand. He gave an example of one of his ex team members – Manmat Kulkarni. Manmat is the expert on IBM hardware. When the IBM people have a problem with their own hardware, Manmat is the man they call.
• Nurture relationships. Feeling connected to people around you is important. Work gets done through personal relationships. Nandu even today has drinks with his old customers when they are in town
• Keep on learning. Your skills of today don’t have long shelf lives. Most IT guys today are in some kind of support roles. Delve deeper, and you will find new skills and learning opportunities over there also. Nandu still spends a couple of hours a day surfing about the latest developments in payment systems.
• Understand the big picture – you align better that way
• Try to hire people who are better than you