SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everyone to another episode of Beyond the Case. This is a podcast where global leaders from Harvard Business School's OPM community join in a personal capacity to share the real lessons, life principles, mental models which go behind building enduring companies. Today's guest is Ashish Kataria. He just finished Unit 1 at the OPM program and is back now in India in Nashik, which coincidentally is a place where I was born. So always a pleasure to connect with other folks from the same location. And Ashish, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Soin. And hello everybody. Ashish, how do you introduce yourself and the work you do?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

So my life journey, I think if I were to put a tagline under it, it would be explorer, the explorer. So I've been I always like to do new things. And that's what I have always done in my personal life, in my professional life. So whereas though I joined the family business, I did not just let it continue the way it was going. I've made added my flavor to the business. I've done a lot of new things, explored a lot of new areas, and I have a story of my own. So a little bit on my professional bit. Basically, I come from a family. My father is a founder and chairman of the board of a company named Ashoka BridConl. We are based out of Nasik. We work Pan India basically into heavy construction EPC. And over the last few years, we've gone in foreign markets. We work in seven or eight countries and adding more. We've consolidated revenues, about a billion dollars for Tune India 500 company listed on the Indian Stock Exchange. And all this started from scratch. My father, first generation entrepreneur. He built the company over the years. Mr. Satish Parak, who's managing director, is a Go promoter, and they both have built a world-class enterprise. And me, as a part of my responsibility, I'm taking it to new frontiers. On my professional side, I started my journey. We are into heavy construction. So railroads, bridges, power lines, railways, everything in railways, all sorts of infrastructure construction is what we do. And it's it's it's a competitive business, large-scale projects, a lot of people, a lot of capex. And I started my professional journey. Instead of coming from a, you know, the family that uh you know runs the business, I started it at absolute grassroots level. So I started as a paving engineer, uh, basically paving concrete uh on one of the road projects that we had in another state. And I spent almost uh five to six years of my early career posted on projects on the field. And from there, the journey has been moving up the professional, you know, hierarchy within the organization and you know, taking it all the way to the corporate side where I, you know, had ventures with equity from Morgan Stanley, new business ventures which had nothing to do with our existing business, but still under the same umbrella, of course. And these companies, it was a utility company, a city gas distribution company with Morgan Stanley as an investor. And uh, we built this company, sold it off for a fantastic return, and uh created a, you know, a real, a real excellent company. And uh that's where I had uh, you know, from one extremity as a paving engineer to seeing several MD action uh where we got investments from funds like Macquarie into our highway portfolio, build assets, sold them off to Canadian Pension Fund, Adlerwise, and this Morgan Stanley case. So it's been a very interesting journey. And between all this journey, there are several businesses which I'm very fortunate that uh I was uh, you know, I was the one who was the entrepreneur behind these businesses. That's a gas business. We got into Redemix concrete, we got into foreign markets. So it's been a fantastic journey. So that's that's on the professional side. On the education side, fortunate that I got my engineering uh till my 12th standard, uh A-levels equivalent. I was in Nasik and a fantastic city for those who do not know. Nasik is the wine-growing region uh in India. Great weather, amazing outdoors. That's where I picked up my love for hiking, cycling, and everything around nature. And I did my 12th standard in Nasik. My engineering four years were in Pune. And then after that, uh got into USC, Los Angeles, and uh got my master's in construction management and a little bit of work in the US, and then moved on to the UK for my MBA, and after that back to India. That's where I started my professional journey and construction projects, etc. here. So that's that's my professional journey in a nutshell. A lot of the explorer side is even more relevant on the personal front. So there's something interesting that I've done is uh I've done a road trip from London to Nasik. So wow. Uh so that was one of the nice experiences. I've taken, I've taken had a bicycling experience with my wife uh on the Eurovelo from uh Bassau in Germany to Vienna in Austria, and um, and a few other cycling trips. Every monsoon I make sure I spend every weekend in the mountains around Nasik, which are very beautiful at that point of time. So that's how the exploration part has been on the professional side with respect to new sectors, new ventures. I am an entrepreneur. I love to do new things, I love to understand new markets, new sectors. I am a bad manager. So once the business comes to a certain level or scale, uh, I get fed up. I do not really enjoy running, doing the same thing over and over again or uh, you know, optimizing the thing. I'm I'm the one who likes to see new markets, meet new people, explore new ideas, build a new team. So that's what I've like to do, and that's what probably I'm good at. This is in that shelf, personal and professional.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

So very well-rounded. Thank you, Ashish. It gives us a very holistic view on your journey till now, what you do as well, and the kind of DNA that you're made of. I want to start off with you know, your father being an entrepreneur. You you mentioned he's a first-generation entrepreneur. He started the company. The company today, by the metrics you shared, seems to be pretty big. But when you were younger, I'm I'm guessing it was a lot more modest uh in terms of operations. Yes. Yes. So did you ever have exposure to the kind of challenges that, you know, he would have visibility into in terms of his day-to-day and the kind of maybe regulations or other business, you know, situations that he had to work around. Did he bring that home? Did you have a conversation around that at times? And how did that shape your mindset?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

So I think, you know, I was fortunate to see his professional journey right from uh my early days of childhood. I mean, I remember my childhood on a scooter. And um, I mean, the company used to be uh we used to work out of office around eight or ten people. Now we are 4,000. And uh I've witnessed uh all the ups and downs. While we were we used to not have a conversation, a conversation uh to share, uh, but I have witnessed him and the hard work that he's put around the kind of team building. One of the biggest things that I have uh witnessed over the period of time is his ability to build a team, to get people together, you know, to make them make uh them feel as owners of the company, you know, professionals in the company felt like they were owners. And many people, you know, prospered professionally and financially in their journey with Ashoka. So one of the key takeaways was that, you know, sharing wealth and sharing equity is not a bad thing. It's a great thing if you want to grow business and build a team and get the right kind of people with you. You know, they may be individuals, they may be organizations, private equity, or uh, you know, go to go for an IPO or get investors on various platforms, they add a lot of value. So in the early days, it used to be individuals. Uh, as the company matured and went to a different orbit, these were funds and yeah, institutions. So a lot of learning from there, a lot of inspiration. Uh, he's a very talented and a very hardworking individual. And I he always is a benchmark. I think I had that advantage of having a father who was himself uh role model in many, many qualities, many areas.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

You decided to start the bus uh to join the business at the very floor level. You mentioned as a paving engineer, correct?

unknown 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

You spent five or six years on the field. What was that journey like? Was there a sense of authority you had given that you're the promoter's son? Uh were there moments where you were humbled? And how did you eventually feel the confidence to transition from uh starting at the very junior level to saying, hey, okay, I think I'm ready to either take on the reins of this business or maybe start something myself?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

So so the initial days were so I had my education done abroad. I worked in the US with Kiwit, Peter Kiwit's sons for for a little time. They're a large heavy civil contractor for some time, and then I came back and I was a few days at home, barely a few days, and then I immediately traveled to a project site in Madhya Pradesh, which was a rural India, and it was almost like a time travel. I got off the train and a few days back I was in London, and then I was in straight away in rural India and Madhya Pradesh, and it was time travel. Since since the beginning, I think uh our family has kept very, very modesty at the core of core of our behavior and our identity. And uh while I was the owner's son, I stayed in the same bachelor's accommodation when people at the same level stayed. This was in Devas, a small town near Madhya Pradesh in Madhya Pradesh. And uh I stayed in the bachelor's accommodation. I said, spent my first year sharing uh the same flat, using the company vehicle as a common vehicle. I spent months uh on the paving uh site, uh, and I think I made a difference in terms of you know pulling off uh concrete paving, which was new to the company, and we formed a team, there was a consultant. And since then, uh step by step I moved to larger projects, taking project level leadership roles. So I was in Indore for a bit, then I was in Surat for a bit, doing some project level leadership roles, uh project manager level roles as I moved up. And I think I got a cabin in the office only after, I think, four or five, uh four or five or six years after uh six years I after I had been on the field. So I got a desk on the office rather. So so that's that's how my journey was. Uh there was no special treatment per se. Uh, but yes, being the owner's son, uh people did have an initial hesitation. But I think I I could I could uh I could gel well and blend with everybody within the project team and form a form a good good rapport with everybody who was there. There were people on the project who were senior to me and of course a lot of colleagues. So that was my initial journey.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

How educated is your father before he started this company? Is was he an engineer by profession?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

So he he had a very difficult childhood. He lost his mother when he was very young, and his father, you know, he was brogue. He lost his mother too early, and father was broke. He had a very difficult childhood, but only on the strength of his education scholarships, he went for an engineering education in Pune. And when he passed out, uh, he was the university topper. He was a he was the gold medalist for that batch of engineering within that batch of engineering. So he was the university topper. He did a job for a couple of years and then started his own business. So he had a very tough childhood without a mother, without any financial resources, and it was only because of good focus on education that he could he could really do what he has done.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

When you had, you know, you had all this exposure, you studied at USC, you worked in the US as well, you come home, you worked at a site in Madhya Pradesh, I'm sure you had a lot of brewing ideas. How were those received by the elders in the company, your father and the other promoters as well? Were there situations where, you know, y'all didn't see eye to eye? And if so, how did you all get past that?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

So there was not a situation where I was I had a situation where I had to, I was not able to see eye to eye with uh any of the existing leadership that worked with my father ever. I never had that kind of a situation. Another thing that I must mention here that Ashoka BuiltCon as a culture, and if you know read it online on blogs of ex-employees, et cetera, this is a company where people get an opportunity to learn a lot. And there is a very strong culture of entrepreneurship. So within the company, if somebody wants has a good idea or a good way forward for a line of business or a process suggestion, it is taken very positively. So, uh, or if you challenge the existing norm, if you have so that culture is already there within the company, not just a privilege for me, but uh, but it is for everybody. And that's with the all with the top leadership is very receptive to suggestions. And and very much in, you know, and the team also is uh, you know, there's good communication between the uh leadership, uh, the people who are at project side and the top leadership at the head office. So this helped me in uh you know sharing idea, sharing suggestion, as well as a lot of learning for me beyond the classroom. Uh, a lot of good management practices, a lot of good things that were going in the company, in the industry, in the market, within the project. So my my journey did not of education did not stop in my classroom. In fact, I would say that a fraction of what I am today is because of the educational institutions. It's largely because of the company of people I had within Ashoka BuildCon, the people who were there, the existing uh the Star Wars who are there, that I learned a lot of things. And uh that has shaped me into what I am today. And then despite all of the success, sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

No, no, no, go ahead, please. Despite all of the success you are having internally at the company, you chose to start other businesses. You know, you mentioned Morgan Stanley as an investor. What was the inspiration for that? And also please touch on, you know, during your personal entrepreneurial journey then, there must have been moments where things may have not gone according to plan. So, how did you go about taking decisions in those difficult moments?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So each time, so once you are a you know a fast developing company and with a good reputation and track record in the market for performance, there are people who share ideas with you, new business ideas, new venture. You see in the market, you want to grow. I had been fortunate that each time there was an opportunity to do something new, I was offered that, and I think I did just it. So, way back or very early in my career, maybe just six or seven years that, or five or six years that I've started working, I set up the ready mixed concrete manufacturing business. So we set up that business, we manufacture concrete, selling, sell it in the open market. It's aligned with the existing business, but then it helps grow. And then I could expand that business to a few cities. And that business still continues to be a part of the business, though I do not look at it on a day-to-day basis or at all anymore, actually. But I was on the founding uh leadership of that business. It's a good steady margin kind of a business. When the gas opportunity came, oil and gas opportunity, that was a bigger one. And uh there uh we ventured into the it was like a utility business. It had nothing to do with our existing business. It was a very B2C kind of business. Uh, but it helped. It helped. And we did some of the most innovative marketing ideas, some of the best project management practices we could uh put in place. And we built a company. That company was a blue-eyed boy of the oil and gas sector. The minister, in one of his reviews, mentioned to everybody else that you know, this is the way work should be done. You look at this company, it's new, but they're doing so good. And it was a very special moment for me and my colleagues then. And then we built this business, uh, monetized it, we sold it off because we're getting fantastic value and made fantastic returns. It was in during that portfolio, for that portfolio, that was the best performing company in the portfolio, in that fund of Morgan Stanty. And for us also, it was great returns. And it was a very good experience for me, for me from an Mendel perspective to actually get equity, build a company, monetize it, take the money home. Same thing happened with Macquarie, and that was at a larger scale where they came in, they did an uh about $50 million equity investment in high-ways platform. And we built that platform as well and recently monetized that to Edelweiss and uh Canadian pension fund guys. So so these are some experiences uh that I had in terms of building companies. Taking the company international was another challenge. While, you know, India is such a large market. In the top hundred construction companies, there's only one company from India. India is like 20% of, you know, India is such a large part. It's the fifth largest economy. We should be much more. And I see a lot of leverage for India because we have the most abundant and cheap skill labor, not just the labor force, but also the managerial force that one can get. At the entire Middle East, cities like Dubai and all, a large part of the construction effort has been India's, but they have been at the working level. Companies, hardly any. So I see a lot of room there. And now recently we expanded to Saudi Arabia as a large construction market, Riyadh, a few countries in Western Africa, Guyana. We have a setup, a few countries in Asia. Guyana is South America, is one of the world's fastest developing economies. We have like 500 people workforce there. And international, uh, we are very optimistic. It should be, it should be an important key pillar of the business in the days to come. So that was and continues to be my baby.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

How do you build a network of other business owners, you know, where you're living, right? So in this case, Nasik, that you can meet with, keep your ideas refreshed, feel young at mind as well. Talk a little bit about the community that you're a part of, of business owners or entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

So for everybody else's perspective, uh Nasik is a is a city with a two million population for Indian standard, just like a small or medium-sized city. And um, but it has a very thriving, very thriving local business community. It is uh very progressive. Uh, defense has a huge setup here. The MiG and the Sukhoi fighter aircraft are made here. Mahindra and Mahindra Big Autocomp is here. Uh, the company is here, we have heavy electrical companies, and we have something very interesting, a few IT companies, and we also have uh MIT Boston, uh, MIT Innovation Center. They, along with uh DCA Stata Consultancy Services, which is India's biggest software company, and one of the world's top 10, I guess, I'm not sure. So these together they set up their incubation center in Nasik for named as Kumbathon. Uh, and this is specifically for an religious event that happens every 12 years named Kumb Mila. And this is where like the city population swells tenfold for a few days for a religious gathering. And such a change in uh the city's the kind of load, kind of pressure that brings on the city's infrastructure, its institutions, creates a lot of social problems. And Mike Boston and DCS have, you know, put an incubation center to solve and help develop companies who can address such social problems, social issues. And they have incubated a few companies here, and I'm a part, active part of that that that initiative. Few other IT companies from NASA have really done great and uh have very talented and uh very entrepreneurial individuals who are also a part. So there is a lot of learning that I get about the new age businesses, leadership, venture capital, uh, then something that I do, which is very much core business and conventional like construction. So that does help, and that's the Nasik perspective. Of course, I travel a lot. I stay a lot of days, I stay as many days in Delhi and Mumbai as as it is as much in Nasik. So that's where I'm also a member of IPO. So that helps me uh give access to a lot of high-quality and highly connected individuals, which is also very essential for my line of business. And Harvard OPM was another great, great experience, and I'm look got a lot of fantastic resources there also.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

One more thing is Nasik is also, I think I believe you all have a printing press there as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Oh, yes. So Nasik, all the money that you see in India, the currency note printing press is in India, but that is now getting irrelevant because India is like highly digitized now, one of the leaders in fintech. So money is becoming cash money is getting more and more irrelevant. Uh, but yes, Nasik has the printing press.

unknown 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Nasik has great wineries, for those who know, who don't know, should come here. And there is also a lot of religious tourism here, wellness tourism here. Just three hours from Bombay, blessed with great weather, air connectivity, good people. Uh, and yeah, a fantastic city to live. I mean, I'm here by choice. Uh, I mean, many most people, most companies our size would move to Bombay or Delhi. But we are happy to be and very proud to be a part of the city. And uh, you know, experience a good quality life. Awesome. What inspired you to consider the OPM program? So a few of my friends at YPO had been uh recommending me this program. And at this point, I'm I'm I'm about to hit 50. And I see a major transition in the business. Transition in terms of to maintain our growth ambitions, we'll need to tap new sectors of business. And so going international, looking at power transmission or renewables as a sector. Should we consider manufacturing as a sector? So that's a big question which is coming up because we are we are a listed company and we would like to continue the growth momentum. Now we are at a billion dollar revenue. When's the next two next billion gonna come? So we want to look at new sectors of business. Also, very important to develop the next line of leadership. People who will take the company over for the next 25 years. Uh they have to be integrated seamlessly with the existing uh teams. Uh and I think I I I felt that this was a point where uh I could use uh formal management education, I could use a network of similar people who I have a similar background and are faced, and and you know, there could be a lot of uh learning from my from my cohort. And that's what I then I look at the program description. OBM was recommended, OBM seemed to be okay, and and I was fortunate to get an admit into.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

And uh you just finished unit one. Any takeaways that come to mind right now that uh you want to just talk about high level?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

So unit one, as far as the content was considered, I mean, I have no, uh I think everybody would have said that. Professors are great, the con uh the way it is done is fantastic. A lot of good learning, a lot of ideas that I had got challenged. Uh my my my thought process, a lot of it got endorsed that it was correct. So, and and the peers cohort, I had a couple of pressing business uh needs. Uh I wanted to enter the Venezuelan market, and now I have somebody, a reliable hand, who can help me on that. So, so that that was that was really great. Specifics, what I learned was that one was leadership and team building. Professor Francis Frey, uh she was fantastic, and I think uh others have also must have said this to you. Uh so leadership was was great. I could see a few blind spots in my own way of working, and hopefully I'll try to correct them and become a better team builder. Uh, I think I do it fairly well, but there is room for improvement. And then there was crisis management. So that is something construction is a hazardous activity. You know, we come in contact with so many stakeholders, so many people, uh, it's still things can go wrong. And uh for a public uh for a listed company, publicly traded company, uh these this can be uh this can be nasty. So crisis management uh, you know, failure frameworks, formal frameworks that need to be put in place and various types of crisis for a large company. So I I'm I'm I'm right now in the process of formally putting those processes in place. Uh second was uh, you know, accounting and controls and fraud prevention. So that was something which I did not take so seriously earlier. I mean, I had the perspective that accounting is more of an accountant's job. And my job is only to see the numbers and do an analysis, but how those numbers are prepared, who is doing it, what are the checks and balances. Uh I was, I was, uh I knew the importance, but I wasn't so serious about it. Some of the, you know, case study method at Harvard really helped me realize that how wrong could things go if not taken seriously. And then, you know, so that's that's another correction that I'm doing in my strategy. Negotiations was all right. I think I already knew most of the things because I'd I'd done some executive education program, but still for those who had not done, they really loved it. And I I think that once we go to the unit two, most of the, you know, those who've completed the other unit, they said that unit two and three will be even more fun. So, yeah, a lot a lot of good takeaways, uh, a lot of things I'm implementing. I hope I'm successful.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

But yeah. Amazing. Do you like reading? Is there a book which has influenced you, Hashish, that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 26:21

No, I'm I'm not. I I do not read a lot. Uh, I'm honestly, uh, but I love to read about uh, you know, current affairs, views. So I I I I completely read, I think I'll read every line of The Economist. I love macroeconomics, so I enjoy reading that. Uh, world affairs, and that goes along well with, you know, somewhere that habit has helped me in in my confidence on the international business. So, no, I'm not a very avid reader, but I do, I do love to, I do try and reflect on my learnings from my class in OPM. So I have them on a book, special book, and I do take time once in a week since I've come, just look at it and see what I've decided to implement. Where do I stand? Am I forgetting anything? So, so yes, but I'm not a very avid reader.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

And lastly, if you could go back in time and talk to a younger version of yourself, what advice would you give him?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

I think I would advise myself on two things. One is I will take my education much more seriously than I did. In especially in the early years, my early years of engineering and before that. On my both my masters, I was pretty, pretty serious, but I I would talk that to me, myself. And I would also say that I could have started building good experiences in life and good exposure much, much earlier. That is something I did not do. That when I say that, that means that I could have traveled places during my college days or during my early professional days, traveled places, gone, gone to various exhibitions, various markets, made connects, joined forums like EO, YPO. You know, I did that, but I think I did that when I was I had almost hit 40. I should have done that at 25. It would have been much more, but no regret. I think yeah, and anti-aging will ensure I live a long life and I'll make it up.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Amazing. Ashes, thank you so much. Uh that was a very, very engaging conversation, and you shared a lot more than the 30 minutes that have been recorded or the wisdom that you've shared, your transparent life experiences will help us a lot. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Thank you, Sohan. Great connecting with you.