For some, gratitude is a way of life

Partho Banerjee is a man who does not believe in forgetting a favour. He tells Punita Jasrotia that it is the support and encouragement of his friends and ex-colleagues that has made him an achiever today

“I wanted to be a CEO by the age of 40 and have achieved my aim,” says Partho Banerjee, president and chief executive officer, Hughes Escorts Communications Limited (HECL), Asia Pacific’s largest VSAT service provider. A man who obviously has a very focused approach in life, Banerjee had also played a major role in setting up Tata Telecom and HECL. The company provides VSAT satellite communication services through its hub earth station in Gurgaon. The service, called Hughes Net, offers customers interactive data, voice and fax communications facilities.

An electronics engineer from Delhi College of Engineering (DCE), he did his Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University. Besides this, Banerjee also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Finance & International Management from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi, which he completed during his tenure with Tata Telecom. Banerjee however is quick to point out that his management training in fact started way back when he was in school. Working diligently as part of his locality’s Durga Puja Committee team, he slowly moved from collecting subscription to becoming the secretary at a very young age.

Starting his career with Philips India, he joined their Professional Services Division, rather than the obvious choice of Consumer Electronics Division. He admits that it was the most memorable job experience in his life. Joining as a trainee, Banerjee was involved in customer field support and later became project manager in the five years he was with the company. He was posted in industrial towns of Eastern India. According to him, getting promotions was not an easy task in Philips, but it was his zest to learn from people and experiences that led him on. Adding to this was the work culture of the organisation that encouraged learning. “I believe that if you get your first break in a good company, a good environment, good business ethics and good people, it just acts as an accelerator in your later life, be it for your future jobs or evolving as a person,” he says. Banerjee in fact believes that it is his friends (mostly ex-colleagues) who have always encouraged and initiated his growth.

In 1987, when a few of his colleagues left for Tata’s new telecom venture, Banerjee also followed them and joined Tata Telecom as a product manager in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. “I trusted them and most are at top positions today,” he says.

According to him though all his nine colleagues from Philips have in one way or the other influenced his life, the major influence has been that of Siddharth Ray of Data Access. “He told me to forget about what everybody else was doing and try finding out where I wanted to be at the age of 40. And, this is what triggered me to work diligently, yet smartly, to achieve a certain goal.”
He acknowledges that the telecom scenario then was quite different from the present conditions. Things were not as volatile as they are in the present times and there was lot of focus on R&D rather than Return on Investments. At that time EPBX was at its infancy and he was involved in setting up the factory and business development activity for Tata Telecom. Besides this, he was also actively involved in a joint venture with Lucent. For Banerjee, the most memorable aspect of this joint venture was that it was done one year before the government allowed private companies to have MNC tie-ups in the telecom sector. During this period he also completed his Post-Graduate Diploma in Finance & International Management.

In 1994, he got the opportunity to work with Hughes, which was setting up its satellite communications services. Banerjee welcomed this opportunity to join the networking business. Part of the core team of four to five people, he was the only individual with the experience of setting up a unit. They revised the business plans, set up the sales and marketing teams, charted the financial plans and also formulated the work culture of the organisation.

Banerjee was working as vice president-marketing and sales for HECL, before taking over the reins from Shashi Ullal, recently. One of his key focus areas is the use of satellite broadcast in interactive distance learning initiative (for technical and management education).