Instant Chemistry

Dr Krautter is not given to mouthing empty promises. In less than two days, Henkel's blue-eyed boy moved with lightning speed to sew up two separate alliances with the Delhi-based Anand Group and Mumbai-based Chembond Chemicals Ltd for manufacturing and marketing its products.

The $12 billion German multinational will hold a majority 51 per cent stake in the new ventures. Henkel is pumping in over Rs 11 crore in the first phase to tap the rapidly developing Indian automotive and general industry sectors.

Dr Krautter, a man who enjoys a rough-and-tumble game of soccer, confesses, I often get a gut feel about making a good play in a particular country. And I feel lucky about India, as opposed to say, China, which does not think commercially. India can draw comfort from the fact that the over 6 foot, powerfully built German had the same good vibrations about Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

As a research fellow at Stanford's Business School, Dr Krautter has written a book on marketing models and does rely on much more than pure instinct while pledging sizable investments. He claims he had one of the best teachers in Helmut Sihler.

Dr Krautter began his career as an assistant to Sihler, the former CEO of Henkel KGaA, who is acknowledged as a brilliant but eccentric man. In addition to marketing savvy, Sihler passed on one pearl of wisdom which Dr Krautter loves to repeat: Intelligent men always have daughters. Sihler has four girls and Dr Krautter is thrilled that he has done none too badly with three pretty little cherubs.

The cherubs have a German state-level judge for their mother and Dr Krautter confesses, My wife asks such precise and searching questions that I am charged everyday.