Ex-CEOs join hands to set up novel firm

Four former Indian CEOs — three of them with telecom companies and one from soft drinks major Coca-Cola — have come together to start an angel partner firm, the Phi Group. Interestingly, the group has roped in two former bosses of global telecom companies for its international foray.

Pramod Saxena (former CEO of Motorola and Essar Telecom), Ravi Sharma (ex-CEO of Alcatel-Lucent South Asia and Datacom Solutions), B D Khurana (former CEO of Reliance Infocomm) and Sanjiv Gupta (ex-CEO, Coca-Cola) are the ones setting up the firm. Currently, Gupta is an independent director with state-owned BSNL.

"We see a good opportunity to start a professional alternative for MNCs who are keen to set up operations in India, and feel that our combined experience of more than 50 years as CEOs will be valuable in setting up and growing operations of our partners. We all have worked with Indian and multinational companies to combine the strength. We feel India is ready for this new concept," Ravi Sharma, who will be the CEO of the new venture, told Business Standard.

Pramod Saxena will be the chairman of the company, while Khurana and Gupta would be board members.

The group has also appointed Pertti Johansson (former executive vice-president, Qualcomm and Motorola) as regional director for Americas, Middle East and Asia and Africa, and Sylvie Richir (former vice-president, Alcatel-Lucent) as regional director for Europe. Johansson would be based out of US and Richir would function from France.

The Phi Group will have two subsidiaries — Phi Televentures for ICE sector and Phi Enterprises for non-telecom businesses (alternate power, defence electronics, hospitality and infrastructure). The subsidiaries will provide advisory and management support to firms.

Phi Televentures’ immediate focus would be to support the companies looking at setting up Wimax, 3G, internet protocol television (IPTV), mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and mobile TV operations in the country, Sharma added.

However, the angel partner firm will not have funds to infuse into operations of any of its clients, even though it will be backed by venture capital funds and financial institutions. The group will also take equity in exchange of its services.

R Poornalingam (former secretary, textiles, government of India) and P N Devrajan (former group president, Reliance Industries), Vishwanath (head of an accountancy firm in India, an LIC board member) Prem Behl (chairman of Exhibition India) are the other members in the team.