Satya Narayanan R is the founder of one of Asia's global education corporate, Career Launcher.He was only 25 when he founded it. Career Launcher, or CL for short, started as an MBA group discussion and interview preparation-coaching institute and grew to test preparation for various competitive examinations including the civil services. In 2005, it entered into the K-12 segment and started its own schools under the name, Indus World School.
In 2008, it acquired Kestone to undertake recruitment, training and event management services for the corporates. The same year it also started conducting various vocational training programs in partnership with the central and various state governments. In 2011, it acquired G. K. Publications that publishes a wide variety of career and academic test preparation and skill-building books. This whole journey was visualised and guided by the Career Launcher founder, Satya Narayanan, fondly known as Satya.Globalrecorder talked to him about his journey so far, his achievements, the secret of his success, the problems facing Indian economy and his advice to the entrepreneurs. He answered as the following:
How will describe your journey till now?
'Lifetime in a blink' is one way of describing my journey so far. It is now 22 years that my obsession with youth, education and entrepreneurship has lasted. 22 years have passed in a blink. Succinctly put, it has been a journey of immense learning for me. To my mind, life is a lot more than either success or money. Entrepreneurship is all about deploying your imagination, making it work, dealing with uncertainties, building trust with all who work with you. Needless to say, it is more about failures and setbacks than successes. That is also the precise reason why this journey is a great teacher in itself.
Looking ahead, I continue to believe that education, along with our democracy, will be the single most important enabler for India. There is a lot of action left. I am hoping to last another blink - another 22 years! I hope to leave an institution that people respect.
What has been your main achievement?
Every failure and every success has come with a learning embedded in it. The willingness to learn, listen and work continuously on reinventing CL Educate is one that I feel very content about. I continue to think our best is yet to come. To elaborate, there is no MBA test-prep company in India that has reinvented itself into a broad spectrum education powerhouse that is a problem solver for universities, students, schools and parents.
Research incubation inside universities, testing and assessment services for colleges, integrated career services, running schools, enabling online learning (flipped classroom) for universities, vocational training for the rural 500 million youth are all a part of CL Educate portfolio. This portfolio with a wonderful team that anchors each business is good to take CL educate from her current location to a growth of 5X in her next phase. I consider this challenging task of reinvention of CL into CL Educate through a very testing and painful process as our single most important achievement.
In your opinion what is the secret of your success?
Many things count. Imagining the future, team building skills, strategic planning, laying bets with a clear head, perseverance, and so on. If I were to pick just two secrets - I would say risk taking to try new things assisted strongly by the ability to persevere.
What are the main problems facing the Indian economy at present?
It might make sense to enumerate the enablers before sharing the problems. I think India has three enablers that no one can stop -
Our problems, in my view, are more of irritations than real problems. We need more leaders like APJ Abdul Kalam, T.N.Seshan, Metro Sreedharan, RBI Rajan. We need more givers who come on the firmament of leadership and are driven by their desire to leave a great legacy, who are self effacing and purpose-driven. The rest will follow. Policy making, long term thinking, rising above petty brownie points, driven by electoral considerations, personal greed are some of our ills.
Having said that, I am an incorrigible believer in the robustness and resilience of our society. We are on our way. We must worry about doing things in 10 years what, otherwise, we will, in 20 years. I would like to see India teach the world that GDP is just one measure and not a holistic measure. Having achieved that, which we will, we must bring the matters of happiness, joy, family, doing-good as an integral part of our "New & Eastern leadership model"
What is your advice to the young entrepreneurs?
These things come to my mind. Managing contradictions and dealing with duality of choices are an everyday affair in any leadership role - at home or office or in entrepreneurship. You will find these in abundance in most success stories.