Call him a serial entrepreneur. In 2,000, he co-founded Daksh e-Services along with Sanjeev Agarwal and Dawan Arvind. "I was tired of travelling business class and earning a living. It was time to add value to India and the rest of the world. When Sanjeev approached me I was sure this would succeed as we had a great idea and a strong value proposition," he says.
When the first five-year plan was made, Daksh made provision for 2,000 employees at most. When Daksh was sold to IBM in 2004 for approximately Rs 700 crore, the headcount stood at 5,000.
Since then, Venkat Tadanki has gone on to found India's first human resources-focused business process outsourcing company Secova eServices Inc, which recently bought US-based HR-BPO company EmpactEBS in a $5 million deal.
"The acquisition was to increase our footprint in the US as we were able to add 15 new customers to our client base and also to gain access to the proprietary HR software of EmpactEBS," explains Tadanki.
The St.Stephen's College, Delhi, economics honours graduate who went on to acquire an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, has been at the right place at the right time.
In 1992, when he was brand manager for Wills at ITC, he saw an opportunity to take his brand international and used the cricket route to do so. What emerged from this piece of business clairvoyance was the Wills Cup in Sharjah.
ITC then decided to trust Tadanki with its next big venture, the launch of ITC in the US in 1994. With Tadanki as president, Fortune Tobacco Company turned profitable in less than 18 months. Today it accounts for 10 per cent of the imported cigarette market in the US.
By 1998 Venkat was back in India and had joined Pepsi India. Tadanki was promoted to executive vice president, made a member of Pepsi India's board and told to take charge of franchisee operations.
"Luck played a big part as the person heading franchisee operations quit and I was told to fill his place," explains Tadanki. He quit in early 2000 to become an entrepreneur.
Tadanki and wife Vidya are hot on socialising (he claims that even if abandoned in Timbaktu they would find families to bond with) and on Thyagaraja kirtanas. When the couple stumbled upon old Thyagaraja kirtanas recently they decided to preserve it for posterity in the form of tapes and CDs. They got together to raise $20,000 to hire a group of professional singers to sing the kirtanas.
Tadanki's other passion is travelling. Last fortnight, he was scheduled to wing his way to Nairobi for a safari with wife and two children. No doubt, he'll be indulging in his other pet hobby, photography, though he confesses he is not very good at it all the time.
