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The homecoming

He is soft-spoken, yet forthcoming. Beneath his humble personality lies an innate passion for his work. Sharad Sanghi, MD and CEO of NetMagic, tells Renuka Vembu how he culminated his experience and learnings from abroad to start his own venture in India

Born and brought up in the financial capital of the country, Mumbai, Sharad Sanghi’s upbringing was not a very different one. His family was filled entirely with lawyers and businessmen, and his middle-class background championed the traditionally grounded value system. Education in St Mary’s School in Bandra meant equal emphasis on education, sports and extra-curricular activities. He balanced his education and the sports-entertainment aspect of his life with ease—he stood among the top three throughout his school days and was an active participant in games like cricket, football and table-tennis.

After successful completion of his 10th grade, came the dilemma of taking up science or commerce. No one from his family had ever stepped into the IT industry, but Sanghi took the first plunge and pursued his electrical engineering from IIT, Powai with computer science as his specialized subject. Two stalwarts influenced him in this process of decision-making and encouraged him to take up the engineering field—Naresh Agarwal and Prithviraj Chauhan, the founders of AEM India. Sanghi recalled, “Their simple advice was—take up science, if you don’t do well, you can always fall back on commerce.” With this plain suggestion, he finished his studies when came another decision point in his life—to stay in India or go abroad. Since Sanghi’s father studied in the prestigious NYU, he was told to go abroad for further studies but on the stipulation that he will return to India some time later. On this mutual agreement, he got entrance into the Columbia University.

Learning experiences

Columbia University opened up limitless opportunities for this young engineer. At first, he got a part funding and later, within three months, obtained a full scholarship from the computer science department. Prof Yechiam Yemini, head of the department, was responsible for giving grants to students with respect to computer networking. The varsity also had a hospital by the name of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre. Here, Sanghi lent a helping hand on a project based on the TCP/IP network. His first official job stint came in the form of an association with AT&T Bell Labs which involved more of theoretical work. The project he handled at the medical centre proved to be much more interesting for Sanghi as he acquired a hands-on experience in setting-up, monitoring and managing the system.

While working for the college project, Sanghi was introduced to Jordon Becker, Vice-president, ANS, which ran the NSFNet, the first backbone of the Internet. Becker was an ex-student of the varsity and was running the Internet which functioned at a very slow speed of less than 1 Mbps, and Sanghi was recommended by his professor to assist Becker. He said, “This was my first break and this is the place where I learnt the most with regards to setting up the backbone of the Internet, analyzing the way it worked and helped design it.” After gaining considerable experience, as promised to his father, he returned to India by parting amicably with ANS.

Back to the roots

This was a phase when the Indian economy was a closely guarded one and the industries were regulated by the government. Sanghi wanted to be a keen player in the Internet service providing space and wished of starting a company, but at that stage nobody was ready to realize its due potential. When he noted that IT wasn’t prevalent in India, he went back and joined Merrill Lynch as a consultant. They wanted to completely overhaul their network and he helped them in setting up a global network.

However, after having gained a few years of considerable experience in the field of providing consultancy services to clients, Sanghi’s roots brought him back to India once again. He said, “I returned to India for a wedding and started consulting services for VSNL. Suchit Nanda knew Neeraj Sonker and Amitabh Kumar of VSNL. Here were sowed the seeds of my vision and ambition of becoming an entrepreneur. VSNL forwarded every proposal that came their way to me, to get my feedback on them, and this helped me immensely to build contacts.”

In 1998, the government announced the privatisation of ISPs. Sanghi immediately grabbed the opportunity in hand and prepared the business plan for his dream venture—NetMagic. He started the company in November 2000, establishing its first data centre in Nirlon Complex, Goregaon, Mumbai, by bringing together a group of like-minded people like BV Jagadeesh and KB Chandrashekar.

Tiding over tough times

But, just like every success story has its share of trials and tribulations, Sanghi too had to face tough times. They had raised money to suffice only for a year, but bad debts by customers and their companies shutting down caused NetMagic’s business to rock. But in a short course of time, it was back on the right track. Sanghi affirmed, “We were ahead of the competition curve in coming up with new products—be it in power distribution design or managed services.” As of today, the company has two data centre offices and is on the verge of getting four more offices in the next two years. He continued, “What I have learnt from my mentors are qualities like humility, focus on customer service, being nimble and innovative, emphasis on professionalism and equal treatment to everyone, not considering any work as trivial and performing every task dutifully. Meeting deadlines, honouring commitments and delegating work are the essential business rules to be followed.”

Sanghi loves listening to music, plays the tabla, is an avid reader and enjoys watching movies. His wife Nirali is the Founder and CEO of indiaparenting.com. His nine-year-old daughter Shyamoli is proficient in Kathak, classical music, piano, painting, swimming and chess. His son Siddhant is just six-and-half years old but is into swimming, music and also plays the piano.

renuka.vembu@expressindia.com