I first met Vineet at our home in Mumbai when he was working in Gail and I was doing my engg. My father and he were working on promoting CNG as an alternate to petrol and lpg. Oil men played golf and could identify a scotch brand in a blind test. Vineet, a civil services babu – somehow seemed to merge well into this rather hep crowd.
I met him again in the late eighties. As a young twenty one year old, I had done my first corporate acquisition. Helping Shiv Nadar and Shailendra Mittal of Mittal builders to take over IDM (the erstwhile IBM India who refused to be nationised and left India – giving part of their business to an employee group led by OP Mehra – which became IDM). Shiv and Kiran threw a party at their elegant residence in Friends Colony Delhi (somehow I remember the address – it was A100). And I was surprised to see Vineet uncle there. He mentioned he was the landlord and Shiv was his tenant. That is where I think Vineet and CP first met.
CP had won the salesman of the year award that year in HCL. He was a young Turk in what was then called the Industry Sales Group. The group was the most veneered among the 2800 strong sales army of HCL. From memory it reported to Ashok Jain and had PC Bhalla, CP Gurnani, Nishish Jha .. and if i am not mistaken the effervescent Gayatri Sen (who later morphed to Gayatri Dalmia). Think her pet name was Bindu and she was Guddu’s cousin. Vineet seemed to get along with all of them.
A few years later, HCL tied up with the then U.S. President aspirant Ross Perot. And HCL Perot was born. Vineet had retired from govt service and was the chairman and I think CP was the ceo. Ross Perot was presumptuous, arrogant and an India basher. I recall telling Vineet that Ross Perot seemed like bad news to me. Ross was a loud American and invited me to visit White House after he won the election. He didn’t win. But far worse things happened. He had a tiff with both HCL as well as Vineet /CPG. It went to the courts and the lawyers made good money. Vineet and Cp stood firmly with Shiv and HCL. And after spending a lot of money on lawyers – the disastrous JV was dissolved.
Shortly thereafter – both Vineet and Cp moved to Mahindra British Telecom – a company I had helped set up for Keshav Mahindra in the late eighties. Anand had just taken over the Mahindra group and MBT was as directionless as BT was. Anand was desperate and handed over the Co to a group of cat salesmen from HCL including Sanjay Kalra, Atul Kunwar and CP Gurnani . It was a motley lot and Vineet was playing grand daddy to keep them together.
And then Satyam happened. I recall meeting Wilbur Ross who wanted to acquire the company. Competing with them was Tech Mahindra. Ross was hostile and had cornered ADRs of Satyam. I tried to broker peace between Vineet and WL Ross. Ross was similar to the other Ross. But now the govt was involved and Vineet knew how to play the govt. Tech Mahindra won the auction.
And the rest as they say is history.
