HOT SEAT

An entrepreneur’s passion

“It is not easy to convert an early-stage conceptual idea into a focussed solution for which customers are willing to pay money. The evolution along this path was challenging at both Healtheon and Cendura”

Pavan Nigam, Chairman and CEO of Cendura Corporation, has taken two companies from the drawing board and turned them into big success stories. He discloses his winning formula to Srinivasa Rao Dasari

Pavan Nigam lives and breathes for his company. He has no personal dreams, all his aspirations are intrinsically linked with Cendura. It is this passion of an entrepreneur that has probably been the formula of his successful career. A recipient of the Silicon India Leadership Award for 1999, Nigam serves on several corporate and advisory boards and is also active in many entrepreneurial initiatives in the Silicon Valley and in India.

He co-founded the Mountain View, California-based Cendura Corporation in 2002 with Tom Speeter. It is an IT infrastructure management company that focusses on helping organisations reduce the escalating costs of managing and supporting complex, distributed applications. Its core product is Cohesion, a platform for “change, configuration and compliance” that is used to gain control of their application infrastructure. “Three years on, Cendura is doing well with clients that include several Fortune 500 companies,” says Nigam.

A man who believes in perfect planning and execution, he has seen few disappointments in his career. According to him, a winning attitude and positive thinking are the greatest motivations for anyone to succeed in life. “My greatest dream has been to make Cendura Corporation a leading name in IT infrastructure management, ” he says.

Nigam is among the lucky few who have managed to convert their childhood dream of being a successful entrepreneur into reality. Born into a Kanpur-based business family, it is not surprising that Nigam always wanted to be a businessman. His father was a dealer for Philips and ran an electronics shop selling radios, stereos and records. He is the youngest of five siblings. “As a child, I enjoyed hanging around at the shop and helping my father. I learnt many business basics in that environment. Clearly, my role model was dad who started as a small-time shopkeeper and grew to be a leading electronics dealer of Kanpur,” recalls Nigam.

After completing his Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering from IIT (Kanpur), he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for higher studies. After a stint at Intel as a software engineer, he worked as the General Manager for Silicon Graphics Interactive Media Group and was responsible for deploying Time Warner’s Interactive TV project in Florida. It was during this period that he developed a close friendship with Jim Clark (founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape Communications). In February 1996, he co-founded Healtheon (now WebMD) with Clark. Nigam was the Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of the company’s Internet operations. He was responsible for Healtheon’s entire suite of Internet-based e-health services. He led the company to be the “world’s leading e-health organisation” with over 6,000 employees and a billion dollars in annual revenue.

Within three years, Healtheon reached a stage where it was processing more than 80 percent of all electronic healthcare transactions in the US. More than 40 percent of the country’s physicians were using its solutions. Says Nigam, “We were by far the most popular healthcare website for consumers and physicians. Of course, we also ended up being the most successful IPO of 1999.”

Problems are a natural part of any endeavour. The most successful are those who view these as necessary challenges that they need to overcome. An entrepreneur’s success depends upon his

leadership qualities followed by the commitment and talent of his team. Nigam is a big believer in assembling the right team as that is always the most critical factor for the success of any initiative. As such, his biggest challenge in every assignment has been to recruit a core group of the smartest individuals for each functional area.

“It is not easy to convert an early-stage conceptual idea into a focussed solution for which customers are willing to pay money. The evolution along this path was challenging at both Healtheon and Cendura,” says Nigam.

On the personal front, Nigam loves to spend a lot of time with his family. While at work he is a mentor to his team members, at home he is a soccer coach to his children. He enjoys both roles. “I watch a lot of football with my 12-year old son, and go skiing with my wife who just loves to ride the snow. Occasionally, I play golf with my friends,” says one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.