Rahul Gouraha

Rahul Gouraha
Joined ITC: 2004

Rahul's journey in ITC:

A 'Times of India' article on how the IITians were moulding the landscape of technological revolution in Silicon Valley & redefining how people looked at India inspired me to concentrate harder on my favourite subjects - Mathematics & Physics and pursue Engineering at IIT KGP. I was well on the trodden path of topping my Branch of study & pursuing higher education in a university in the USA when I landed a Summer Internship at ITC. The next two months were an eye-opener for me and I probably worked the hardest that I had till then in my life! I had been given a complex operational problem to solve and was expected to implement the solutions before I left. I got a tremendous high out of working in a large people system and by the time I had received a pre-placement offer from ITC, I was clear that this was what I wanted to do once I passed out.

Induction period at ITC was interesting not only because I built strong friendships with my peers & seniors during this stint but also because I got to work on open-ended problems such as "Improving ITC's Retail distribution practices vis-a-vis its competitors.". It was during my Marketing stint that I observed first-hand the power of product quality in creating the Market standing of a product and was convinced that I wanted to contribute in this area. I spent the next two years in ITC's largest cigarette factory with a challenging variety-volume mix creating new systems & leading my team to affect significant improvements in product & process quality. I subsequently moved to ITC's Corporate Head Office & was involved in orchestrating the roll-out of Six Sigma & Lean management in my division. This was a horizon-widening stint not because of the complexity of the initiative I was involved in but also because of the opportunities I got here to influence policy at the apex level and engage in areas such as Talent management which are close to my heart. From there I moved back to Bangalore factory and I got my first experience of heading a large department. Leading a team of more than 600 associates toward operational excellence and making a significant business impact was truly amazing. I also got the opportunity to conceptualize and roll-out an innovation process that has enabled the generation & implementation of more than 1000 innovation projects towards improvements in productivity, quality & market delivery in the last three years. After this stint, I got to head the entire Production function in ITC's first cigarette factory. Energizing a team of more than 1000 to achieve business outcomes they considered almost impossible, gave me huge satisfaction. I also got to play a key role in the reorganization of work processes in the Unit through an elaborate, complex but extremely interesting negotiation process with the Union team. This stint provided me with rich opportunities to engage in important people processes such as management development and helped me grow as a leader. I moved to head the Production function in the Bangalore factory, where my responsibilities included leading a team of more than 1100 employees, and 30 managers & ensuring productivity of an asset base above Rs 1500 crores. I take pride in the realization from various benchmarking studies that my team truly delivered world-class performance. I currently am the Vice President of New Business Development and ITC MAARS (Metamarket for Advanced Agriculture and Rural Services).

In two decades, I have traversed the leadership pipeline graduating through the roles of Individual Contributor, Manager, and Manager's Manager to a Functional Manager to my current role as Vice President. My journey at ITC has been fast-paced and exciting and what's even better is that I feel that the best is yet to come!

Rahul's thoughts on ITC as a Workplace:

Whilst the diversity of the people I've come across in ITC never ceases to amaze me, I sense a commonality between them at a fundamental level. I've found that the people in ITC not only possess a tremendous amount of experiential & theoretical knowledge but also display deep humility & integrity. I haven't come across any "Masters of Universe" in ITC! A unique blend of collegial atmosphere & healthy competition at the workplace resonates with my own set of values & has always energized me. I've always found encouragement from my teams to try out my ideas, support during my failures & insights during the moments of introspection. I appreciate the fact that the workplace at ITC provides me with a broad canvas that allows me to work on wide-ranging areas such as Six Sigma & Lean, employee engagement, complex negotiations with unions, campus connect, technology induction, innovation & managerial development processes. Finally and most importantly, at the workplace, I've built relationships that go beyond work & I truly feel that I am part of a large family - that of ITCians.

Rahul believes ITC offers you:

ITC's biggest value proposition for me is the opportunity from my first year here to discover & mould the leader in me. ITC has offered me myriad leadership opportunities & the space to experiment and learn from my mistakes. Whilst reading about the subject has helped me crystallize my thoughts, it is the experience of leading diverse teams to successfully achieve audacious goals that has truly helped me develop my leadership style. The second thing I value a lot about ITC is the opportunity it offers me to take up complex business problems, conceptualize broad solution frameworks & then actually implement solutions with my team. The experience of starting with an ambiguous but critical business problem & finally witnessing the power of implemented solutions gives me a tremendous high! Finally, the realization that my efforts are helping build a world-class Indian enterprise provides a deep & meaningful purpose to my professional endeavors.

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