Leadership seminar with Sunil Mittal

Today we had a leadership seminar with Sunil Mittal. He talked about how India has developed over the years from a socialistic economy to a more liberalized economy. In 1992 the country had only 7 days worth of foreign-exchange reserves and had to mortgage its gold with the Bank of England to borrow $500 million. India was even thinking of selling its prime-property around the world to raise money (e.g., the Prime real-estate where the Indian embassy in Tokyo is located). This is really what drove India into liberalization along with a lot of pressure from the World Bank and IMF.

It was in this liberalized economy starting in 1992 that Sunil Mittal build Bharati Enterprise to become one of India's premier business houses. Bharati's flagship company Airtel now has a market capitalization of over $35 billion. His story resonates like the story of many of the Indian businesses that were started by entrepreneurs in the 1990's.

His view is that India is at a cross-road with a lot of potential and is growing rapidly. The next two decades will make or break India. He feels that the areas that needs the most development and support in India are education, agriculture and research in pure-sciences.

I liked the way he explained complex things in very simple terms. What I liked even more was that he used numbers to make his point across rather than using casual rhetoric.