Gaurav Tayal

Gaurav Tayal
Joined ITC: 2003

Gaurav's journey in ITC:

It was love at first sight, if I dare say with ITC when I first experienced this company as an intern from IIT Bombay in the summer of 2002. The company reciprocated and offered me a PPO making me the first student on campus with a plum job and there went all the dilemmas of Job v/s GRE v/s CAT v/s GMAT out of the window. Looking back, did I strike a wrong deal? , not really. Post a rigorous induction as an Assistant Under Training for 9 months spanning across Technical, Marketing, Sales, Product Development, HR, and Finance, I was posted as Asst. Engineer (Projects) at one of the tobacco factories. Evaluation of cutting-edge technology including financial assessment, project management, and execution of capital outlay over Rs. 20 crores were my humble start in this role. I was settling down and there came an Operations role with independent charge for Cut Tobacco manufacture at the same plant (it accounts for almost 25% of total cut tobacco manufacture of ITC) followed by responsibility for Exports Manufacturing and Secondary Operations at Bangalore and subsequently for heading end to end Cigarette manufacturing operations and logistics. All of this happened in 5 years. But with this growth came great responsibilities as well of managing an asset base of Rs 1500 crores, a team of 1100 employees and 30 managers. I was the Head of Production in a factory for 3 years and then been assigned as the Head of Factory operations role spanning over Technical, HR, and Finance functions. I am currently the SBU Chief Executive for the Matches & Agarbatti Division. As the Company grew (refer to net profit growth and market capitalization of ITC) so did my career - exponentially. Did I strike a wrong deal, certainly don't think so.

Gaurav's thoughts on ITC as a Workplace:

Balance between fun and performance pressure marks my experience at ITC as a workplace. I am not referring to fun outside but at the workplace. The organisation provides space to individuals to pursue their interests or strengths areas as far as their career is concerned and at the same time invests heavily in developing competencies and leadership quotient in individuals. ITC believes in job rotation which hones one's perspectives on varied business domains and facilitates the building of new areas of strengths. Sometimes you will find yourself pushed into uncharted territories with the comfort of the organisation's tolerance for mistakes hence enabling an atmosphere for experimentation and innovation. Fairness of people systems and respect for individuals has transformed my association with this organization from an employment contract to a lifelong relationship. It is challenging yet accommodative, it is competitive yet collaborative and it is changing yet stable.

Gaurav believes ITC offers you:

There are organisations that build agile professionals and then there are institutions like ITC that build business leaders. It does it so subtly that I would compare it with a non-invasive medical procedure. You are exposed to innumerable dimensions of business in the areas of Engineering, Marketing, Finance and HR irrespective of which function you belong to. With senior leadership of immense depth, knowledge and expertise to guide you at every step of your journey and at a speed that can leave you gasping at times, you may run out of steam before ITC runs out of options to challenge you. The organisation invests heavily in training and development and with job rotation and cross-functional assignments provides you a platform to demonstrate application of newly acquired skills. From an engineer with a never-ending need for objectivity in business problem solving to a professional who can appreciate the existence of ambiguity and subjectivity and hence the importance of judgement and vision had been my most significant learning at ITC. An organization which over the last decade has transformed itself from a single-product company to a multi-business conglomerate has infinite possibilities for anyone with a spark within them.

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