Venkatraman Srinivasan did his graduation in Math from Chennai, where he was the university gold medallist. He followed that up with a CA, again getting a gold medal. He then joined his dad’s practice. His dad was into tax consulting – and his area of expertise was in tax appeals. Not only did this require good knowledge of tax laws, but also required the ability to manage the egos of the tax officials – who are the executive and judiciary rolled into one.

After 4 years of working with his dad, he moved into the corporate world – joining Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India – which was still a development bank in the eighties. He had done his Company Secretaryship by then – and worked for 3 years with N Vaghul, the then chairman, for managing investor relations. And then for 10 years under the next chairman, KV Kamath. During Kamath’s days, the investor relation management division was spun off as a separate company – 3i Infotech, with Srini as the CEO. 

ICICI had started E-Mudhra, a venture to manage digital signatures. They spun it off in 2010 to concentrate on core banking. An Indian promoter and a Netherlands investor bought the company. Tragically, this company did not grow beyond the 10 cr mark – and the investor lost interest. The Indian partner bought out the investor and approached Srini for help in fund raising. Srini decided to invest himself – and at the young age of 58, Srini became an entrepreneur. Within 4years of his taking over, market share of E Mudhra for digital signatures went up from 10% to 40%. They diversified – launched products which they would sell at loss in order to get marquee customers on board. Today E Mudhra has a revenue of 700 cr with a 15% PAT and a team size of 1000. 

He has stayed away from getting investors in E-Mudhra based on his own experience as an investor. While VCs report growth rates, which at 15 to 25%, are closer to bank rates of interest, very often even lesser, they are looking at ten bagger returns on investments – and are in a hurry to do so. Their investing philosophy is to put the entrepreneur frogs in a boiling pan – and see what happens. Do they jump out and transform into frog princes delivering on 2X growth in 3 years? 3X in 5 years? Or are they just boiled to death? Statistics favour death – and VCs like surgeons are not moved by such dying experiences. They just take over the dying company and salvage whatever they can.

So the entrepreneur starts taking outsize risks. And the thinking corrupts to adopt whatever it takes to get the growth engine running. Along the way, the entrepreneurs bankers encourage higher leverages, more loans – to get the company along the growth path. More often than not leading to journeys to the NCLAT. And the unceremonious departure of the entrepreneur from the company she founded.

Srini’s talk was about balanced living and the spiritual angle to business. His definition of materialism is when an entrepreneur starts running for his greed instead of customer needs. He has written extensively on this – in fact all of us were gifted a copy of his book at the end of the talk. Srini talked about the three devils that try to control a manager’s life – Kama, Krodha and Lobha – greed, anger and miserliness. Moksha is a state when you can bring these three devils under control.

Kama: Srini talked about Kama problems that even managers face. They design their career around hops between companies every 3-4 years – and by the time they are in their 40s – they are out of a job. Srini’s philosophy has been to balance greed. There are two guidelines that he suggests to do that. One: Put yourself into the other’s shoes – if there are reasonable outcomes for the other party, do the deal. Your deals should not harm others. Two: follow the truth, not in the Harishchandra sense, but basically of not compromising with your own value systems. He thinks entrepreneurial life is not a rat race, it’s a hare and tortoise one. Mental peace is what wins races.

Krodha: What causes krodha? Attachments, affinities. Any high levels of these – whether it is to religion, nation or family – causes enmity. Krodha then affects my actions when I start bad mouthing my enemies. Control of affinity is important.

Lobha : All of us are thieves. We always have double standards -one for the self, one for everybody else. This comes to haunt our mind. Control is Important again here.

When one asks oneself – What is I? one receives multiple answers: Body, Mind, Intellect and Soul. Srini turned to the Upanishads to make us understand the three parts of the body.  

Sthula sharira or the gross body: This is the visible, physical body. We all identify ourselves so much with our physical bodies made up of hands, legs etc, that we consider it to be our true self . Our names, gender etc. all belong to this body only. Why did we get this body? To reap the fruits of the karma we did in our previous lives.

Sukshma sharira or the subtle body. It is not visible to any of the sense organs. When we are in deep sleep our subtle body withdraws from the gross body. When the subtle body withdraws completely from the gross body death occurs. Whatever karma we do gets coded in an invisible way in this subtle body. The subtle body does not die. Therefore, after the death of the gross body, this subtle body in due course, as per its coding, receives another gross body.

Karana sharira is the causal body within Hinduism’s three-body philosophy, and is considered the most complex. From Sanskrit, karana translates to “causing,” “making” or “muscle”; and sharira means “body.” Karana sharira is thought to be the portal to entering higher consciousness, as well as the cause of the existence of the gross and subtle bodies. 

Atma is the innermost essence of an individual and is considered a source of pure, unchanging energy and consciousness. This “energising force” is often referred to as Atma Shakti, or soul force. Practices such as meditation, pranayama (breath control), and yoga are recommended to help individuals connect with their inner self, purify the mind, and experience the full potential of this energizing force

Srini then moved on to his real-world gurus, his mentors – and what he learnt from them. His earliest guru was his dad. A CA who started his litigation practice in the 50s – he taught his son three principles that he himself had used in his life.

• Use whatever it takes – sham, dam, dand, bheda –  to open doors.
• Pull an elephant by your hair. If the elephant does not budge, you only lose some hair.
• Don’t be afraid of the law. Every case has a hundred loopholes – and you have to learn to jump through them.

From his first boss, N Vaghul, Srini learnt the importance of punctuality. Vaghul was never late for any meeting – and would ensure that meetings start on time. Another hallmark of Vaghul was his simplicity – he had no airs about him. And he would take time out to attend family functions for people in his team. When Srini approached Vaghul to write the preface for his book – he immediately pointed out to Srini that book writing is Kama – the ego where the writer is trying to show readers how he is more knowledgeable than them. Vaghul narrates a very interesting story in the preface – which I am reproducing below.

A Pauranika is a person considered to be an expert with regard to discourses on the Bhagavatha. He approached the king of Benaras, which was then considered to be the highest seat of learning, and told him that while he had given discourses in several courts, he had one desire left, that of giving a discourse in the Benaras king’s court. The king was very pleased, but got down from his throne and, with folded hands, told him how it would be a great honour for him to listen to him but could the Pauranika please read the Bhagavatha once more before starting his discourse? 

The Pauranika was angry but as his anger would be of little avail in the presence of the king, he had no option but to go back and read the epic once again. As he did so, he found deeper meanings in the various passages. His anger evaporated, as he realised that the king had good reason to make the suggestion that he did. 

After completing his reading, he once again approached the king with the same request, only to be told by the king to read the epic once more before starting his discourse. Dejected, he came back home and plunged into reading the Bhagavatha once again. As he delved deep into it, he found that he was getting gradually transformed. His sense of ego left him and the desire to display his prowess before the king also disappeared. He read and re-read the book many times. 

Realising that the Pauranika was not going to return, the king rushed to his home, prostrated himself, and requested the Pauranika to begin the discourse as he had at last found a worthy teacher.

From KV Kamath, Srini learnt about the importance of execution. When Kamath took over, ICICI was living in a PSU era – and Kamath wanted private sector growth. One of the first things that Kamath did once he became CEO, was to triple the salaries of his reportees. The team delivered a 40% growth that year. But one needs to keep in mind – that though execution was powerful – no decisions were split second ones. Kamath’s aggression probably stems from his Indonesian experience during his stint with Asian Development Bank. Srini also talked about delegation styles that he probably picked up from KVK. Delegate in a way that the person you delegate to has some understanding of the complexity involved – and have adequate instructions accompany the delegation. 

Srini concluded the talk with his philosophy on retirement. As executives we think the company runs because of us. Don’t wait for retirement to keep this ego aside. When Srini left ICICI, he took over a 100 person company. Used to heading a 15,000 person strong team, he started doing stuff even his 3i Infotech assistants would not do. Even today he meets customer accounts who offer only Rs. 1 lakh of annual business to E Mudhra. A parting tip – most of us share our digital signatures with our CAs, but we need to understand the risk associated with this. There have been cases where all shares have been transferred to other parties using these signatures – without the knowledge of the promoters.

Srini feels that peaceful retirement is a paradox. While earning may not be the main purpose any more, empty minds do end up being workshops for Mr Devil. The wisdom of the 50s is very different. The world loses this wisdom if you retire and keep all of this to yourself. Srini talked of his ex-boss, who retired in an era where computers and the internet were still in their infancy. Mr Shah, who is in his nineties, is still active in stock market trading – watching the ticker tape on TV – and calling his broker to execute trades.