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Words of wisdom

Being from an entrepreneurial family, Samir Gulve, MD, Avaya India, and VP, Avaya Global Communication Solutions (GCS) division, has always been fortunate in getting inspiration and motivation at the right time. Due to this he has been successful in living a balanced life, writes Nikita Upadhyay

Samir Gulve

Inspiration for Samir Gulve started right from home. Observing his homemaker mother being a perpetual student and amassing degrees, diplomas and certificates in diverse areas from literature to photography really encouraged him.

Educational background

Gulve grew up in Mumbai; did his schooling from Raja Shivaji Vidyalay (earlier known as King George High School) in Dadar, and college from SIES and Elphinstone College. He took up engineering in IIT, Mumbai, and pursued his higher education at Virginia Tech and did significant work towards his PhD at Illinois Institute of Technology.

After been in the US for over 21 years, he returned to India with his family.

Source of inspiration

“I have taken inspiration from my parents and many teachers over the years. A couple of them stand out vividly. I believe these influences have shaped me and have had a profound impact on who I am and what I have been able to achieve,” stated Gulve.

Apart from his parents, he derived motivation from his second grade teacher (Trimbak Guruji), who subtly ended up teaching him the power of goal alignment. Gulve was a trouble maker in class and so as to transform him into a responsible student his teacher appointed him as the class monitor. This altered his behaviour completely from being a disruptive force in the class to being the keeper of peace and order.

Another teacher whom he accredits with inspiring him is Avate Sir. He was the one who had the knack of getting young individuals to dream big and then to make them strive to achieve that dream. He made the dull, dry and boring topics full of fun and intrigue.

Career path

After finishing his Civil Engineering from IIT, Gulve was posted on a site out of Mumbai in a middle of no-where for the summer internship. Every day working in a muddy, unglamorous environment away from humanity and with the harsh sun beating down made him wish for an air conditioned office job in a posh, glamorous environment.

Simultaneously, he was doing his BTech thesis in Computer Aided Design (CAD). It was then he realized that he not only liked working with computers but was also good at it. He put the two things together and then never looked back.

Most of his career (barring the last four years) had been in the US. Over the years he has held key positions in both large as well as small start-ups. These positions have spanned across various functional areas like R&D, product management, sales, services, operations, strategy and general management.

“I have worked in prestigious companies those have been recognized leaders such as Avaya India, AT&T Bell Labs, Netscape, SSA and Amdocs,” informed Gulve. He has also worked with highly successful Silicon Valley based start-ups. The reasons for changing jobs have always been to get diverse functional exposure and to broaden his experience base.

Major achievements

Gulve is currently responsible to drive the R&D operations in Avaya India, and manage the off-shore work globally.

“As a professional, I have played an important role in building software products that positively affect the lives of millions of people around the world. I have been able to directly or indirectly contribute to the progress of technology, solved some significant business problems for my customers and created wealth and value for shareholders,” echoed Gulve.

Close to heart

His biggest dream for Avaya is to establish the largest R&D unit. This would in turn help the company get recognized as a significant contributor towards mankind along with being a commercially successful establishment.

He is pragmatic in his approach towards team building. “A team is together because of a shared goal. Articulating clearly such a shared vision, getting everyone to align their own interests to the larger goal and then helping them time-to-time get through the apparent contradiction between the two is a way to build winning teams,” exclaimed Gulve.

Familial bond and passions

Gulve’s wife is also an IIT Mumbai graduate and is currently a homemaker. He has two sons; while the younger one is doing his schooling, the elder one is headed to the Temple University (Philadelphia) to pursue a marketing degree.

“I am basically a passionate person with many interests. One of them is teaching and mentoring younger people, to help them reach their fullest potential,” stated Gulve.

He used to engage himself in a lot of different sports like basketball (his favorite), tennis, golf, amongst others. But after hurting his knee in a basketball game a few years ago and subsequently going through four-five surgeries, he no longer can play the game. Gulve also has an ear for music and plays the guitar. He even engages himself in writing both fictional and non-fictional stories.

Straight from the heart

He believes that becoming an entrepreneur is an ultimately liberating and extremely educative experience. Gulve maintains that he has been fortunate to have had many such learning opportunities over the years. Furthermore, he believes that it is more of a state of mind and one can become an entrepreneur even under a large company umbrella.

“You have one life to live, make it count. God has given you the ability and opportunity. So use it to leave things in a better shape than how you found them,” is what Gulve preaches.

nikita.upadhyay@expressindia.com