The Coolest One?

The past year has been pretty hectic for Ibsen as his has been the task of setting up the whole venture from scratch. But now that he has wrested back the Kelvinator brand, he is a happy man. But for Kelvinator, I wouldn't be smiling, confesses Ibsen. He plans to spend the next year taking Electrolux to its rightful place in the Indian market as market leader.

Ibsen's India brief is simple: consolidate investments and ensure returns. And he promises to turn the company into black in the near future.

An undergraduate in economics and an MBA, with specialisation in marketing, the 36-year-old American has spent most of the 13 years of his working life outside the US. He readily explains why: Because America is too slow compared to Asia. Also, while in Hong Kong he married a Frenchwoman, which brought its own set of problems: I didn't want to live in France and my wife doesn't want to live in the US. So India was a perfect half-way point.