Bharti's "Professional Managed, Entrepreneur Supported" model

Extract from Sunil Mittal's interview to Forbes India.

When we started out, we were an entrepreneur-led, entrepreneur-promoted company. We did a great job. In some companies, this phase lasts forever. Nothing wrong. But in my view, if you do that, you remain small. You can’t manage a large company using this model. So we moved to the next stage — entrepreneur-led and professional-supported. Over the last four years, we’ve moved to professional-managed and entrepreneur-supported. And that’s where we want to keep it.

There is one more stage — professional-led and professional-supported. Vodafone is in this mould...No single shareholder is dominant...Parts of our organisation were moving to the professional-led and professional-supported model. I had to pull it back because I figured they were becoming too bureaucratic. Things didn’t move; too many approvals were needed; too many emails. That is something we want to avoid...You must feel like the deer in a forest, which is always afraid of being attacked. Else you’re dead.

...Entrepreneurs do it intuitively. For professionals, it is part process and part intuition. When we wanted to outsource our network, it was considered blasphemy. Akhil [Gupta] and I spoke about it many times. I know how many obstacles he had to face to take it through. Everybody was dismissive of the idea. Sometimes, seniors will not only say this isn’t good, they will work hard to ensure it isn’t good. I had to protect him. That’s where the professional-managed entrepreneur-supported model comes into play. I said let’s go...If I were a professional CEO and even if I had the guts to take on the board, I don’t think I would have got the approval. The board would have batted on the safe side.

Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private equity, venture capital and M&A deals in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports. Email the author at arun@ventureintelligence.in

Avendus tops League Table for Transaction Advisors to PE deals in H1'24

Citi and Ambit claim the No.2&3 slots Avendus topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisor to Private Equity Transactions in H1’2024 advising 12 deals worth $2.4 Billion. Citi stood second, having advised 1 deal worth $2 Billion. Ambit followed with 7 deals worth $797 million. Kotak Mahindra Capital ($735 million across 2 deals) and Ernst & Young ($657 million across 7 deals) completed the top five for H1’ 2024. The Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on the value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Financial and Legal Advisory firms. Among the larger deals in the latest quarter, Citi, KPMG , Ernst & Young advised $2 Billion acquisition of the Indian business of American Tower Corporation by Brookfield . Avendus, Ernst & Young, JM Financial, Barclays and KPMG advised $ 554 million acquisition of Shriram Housing Finance by Warb...

Citi tops League Table for Transaction Advisors to M&A deals in H1'24

Ernst & Young and Avendus claim the No.2 & No.3 slots Citi , which advised the $2 Billion acquisition of the Indian business of American Tower Corporation by Brookfield, topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisors to M&A Deals during H1 2024. Ernst & Young stood second advising 8 deals worth $1.5 billion. Avendus followed with 7 deals worth $1.2 billion. KPMG ($1.1 billion across 5 deals) and JM Financial ($900 million across 4 deals) completed the top five. The Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on the value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Financial and Legal Advisory firms. Among the other larger M&A deals in H1 2024 (other than the ATC-Brookfield deal) , Ernst & Young, KPMG and Deloitte advised $1.1 Billion acquisition in PNC Infratech 12 Road Projects by Highways Infrastructure Tr...

AZB tops League Table for Legal Advisors to PE deals in H1’24

Trilegal and Khaitan & Co. claim the No.2 & No.3 slots AZB & Partners (AZB) topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisor to Private Equity Transactions in H1 2024 advising 41 deals worth $5.4 Billion. It was followed by Trilegal ($5.1 Billion across 54 deals) and Khaitan & Co. (4.8 Billion across 46 deals) in the second and third spot respectively. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($2.9 Billion across 34 deals) and Talwar Thakore & Associates ($2.4 Billion across 9 deals) completed the top five. Among the larger Private Equity deals during H1’2024, Khaitan & Co., Talwar Thakore & Associates, S&R Associates ,and Trilegal a dvised the $2 Billion acquisition of the Indian business of American Tower Corporation by Brookfield which was the largest PE-VC investment in 2024 . AZB advised the $900 Million acquisition of Altimetrik by TPG Capital and the $840 Million acquisition of Healthium Medtech by KKR . Resolut Partners , Khaitan & ...

AZB & Partners tops League Table for Legal Advisors to M&A deals in H1’24

Khaitan & Co. and J Sagar Associates claim the No.2 & No.3 slots AZB & Partners topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisor to M&A Transactions during H1 2024 advising 37 deals worth $14.8 Billion. It was followed by Khaitan & Co. ($12.8 Billion across 32 deals) and J Sagar Associates (JSA) ($9.8 Billion across 13 deals). Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($6.2 Billion across 38 deals) and Trilegal ($4.8 Billion across 20 deals) completed the top five. Among the largest M&A deals during H1 2024, AZB, JSA and Khaitan & Co. advised $8.5 Billion acquisition of Disney Hotstar by Reliance Jio . S&R Associates , Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA), Khaitan & Co. and Trilegal advised the $2 Billion buyout deal of ATC India by Canadian infrastructure investor Brookfield Asset Management . CAM advised the $1.3 Billion in the acquisition of a further stake in Ambuja Cement by Adani Enterprises . Among fo...

VC Interview: Shailendra Singh of Sequoia Capital India

In a recent interview to Venture Intelligence, Shailendra Singh discussed some of the firm’s newer investments in the early stage segment including in the online payments space, the progress at a few existing portfolio companies and the active role the firm is playing in helping its portfolio companies scale and succeed in India and globally. Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Singh was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in New York and before that, an entrepreneur in the digital media industry. Venture Intelligence: How does Sequoia go about identifying potential early stage investments in India? Is there anything different you are doing today than, say, a couple of years back? Shailendra Singh: There is a lot more focus on technology investing and early stage investing. In general, as you might remember a few years ago, we were doing primarily growth investing but in the past 18-odd months, we have had a very strong focus on early stage and that’s continuing. In terms...

The Venture Intelligence Blog

Search This Blog