|
Hot Seat
Bettering the best
Throughout his journey from a trainee programmer to the head
of a 725-member organization, Ramachandran Subramaniam, VP and MD, Yodlee
India, has been constantly competing against his own performance and setting
benchmarks for himself. By Nikita Upadhyay
Ramachandran
Subramaniam |
R Subramaniam had the privilege to travel across the country
because his father was on a transferable job under the Ministry of Finance.
Hence his childhood was spent in Mysore, Madras and Delhi. However, from the
eighth standard to MSc, he was in Delhi and so most part of his growing days
were in the national capital.
After his MSc, he did his post-graduation in Operations Research from Delhi
University. In his higher secondary he had scored second class marks and was
very dejected that he could not join any engineering college. Also, his batch
in school was the first one to have computerized results. There were rumours
that due to the erroneous data entry, many of them had received less marks.
There was no way to ascertain that and possibly it could not have been true
either, but that gave him one thought—to be a computer professional.
Constant motivation
The combined effect of the marks being low and the inspiration to become a computer
professional made him determined to become one. “I am really satisfied
that over the last four years I have been heading the India Division of Yodlee—an
IT organization,” chuckled Subramaniam. He had been the MD at FCG Software
Services, India, and has over 20 years of managerial experience with responsibility
of managing cost centers, strategizing and executing business plans, enabling
growth and leading large teams, delivery management, training and quality assurance.
He had also held senior positions in organizations like HCL, Polaris, Max India
and FCG Software Services.
His parents have been the main source of inspiration, especially his father.
“He always gave me the freedom and encouragement to venture into what I
would like to be. He never influenced me with his thoughts or never forced me
to be someone that he wanted me to be,” stated Subramaniam. This had a
significant impact on his career achievements and encouraged him to learn from
his failures. This also inculcated a ‘never give up attitude’ in him
and made him a better person.
Too many roles
Subramaniam thoroughly enjoys his current job profile. He is a part of the strategic
management team of the company and contributes towards making it meet its overall
goals and objectives. He focuses more on results and execution. He is metrics-driven
and understands where exactly his company stands and what the challenges are.
He has been defining, developing and delivering a strategic plan for sustainable
growth in the organization.
“I have been partners with and coach to the managers and leaders in the
US. I make sure that we operate within budgeted costs and enable budget distribution
and monitoring at department levels. I act as a strong advocate for HR and human
development to make sure that the staff has well defined plans for growth and
improvement and has a career at Yodlee,” informed Subramaniam. He is a
firm believer of the fact that for effective leadership, recruiting is a key
element of the job and so is building a solid management team.
Achievements speak
He has been in the IT field for over 27 years. Subramaniam started his career
as a trainee programmer and has grown to be the head of a 725-member organization.
He expanded the team from a size of 90 to 725 employees in less than four years.
His strength lies in setting up development centers right from the ground level,
building teams, defining policies, setting up processes, procedures and operating
them by focusing on growth.
He abides by the sentence—“There is nothing called having done the
best. No matter how good you do, there is always something that can be improved
and done better. And if a sincere attempt is made, one can do better than the
previous day.” He propagates this very strongly to his team and also practices
it diligently. To encourage his staff members, he even coined a term ‘Bettering
the Best’. He said that he gets motivated by the urge to do better. His
biggest dream is that his company should soon earn the status of a product building
company which interests its employees.
He wants the fiction book he is working on to be widely read and appreciated
by his readers. While addressing new recruits on the very first day in office,
Subramaniam sees his own reflection in them as they act as mirrors for him.
He personally conducts training programs across all levels on soft skills by
quoting live examples from his past experiences. Time management is his speciality;
apart from talking and teaching about it, he is always seen and appreciated
by people, both on the business front and personally, for being punctual.
Personal front
He believes that lady luck has been behind his success. His wife had been very
supportive. There was a time when he hardly gave any time to his family and
she never complained. She was the one to stand behind and encourage him during
critical times. Given an opportunity to go back in time, he would like to change
his higher secondary grades and qualify as an engineer.
“Values mean a lot to me and no matter what, one should not sacrifice it.
I strongly believe honesty is a great value that one should have and I have
a placard on my office table quoting Swami Vivekananda—‘You can sacrifice
anything for the sake of truth but you cannot sacrifice truth for anything,’”
he stated, while speaking about the value system that he espouses.
Subramaniam’s key for success has been his undying focus. His hobbies include
reading and writing poetry. He also likes taking long walks and practices yoga
regularly, which he has been doing that for the last 15 years. He is planning
to pen down his life experiences in the form of his biography just as a book,
which new-comers can relate with.
nikita.upadhyay@expressindia.com
|
