MY FATHER WAS VERY KEEN THAT I LEAVE THE house,” laughs Atul Minocha, Chief Marketing Officer at Kodak’s health imaging division. “It wasn’t a very Indian thing, but in retrospect, it has given me the basis to explore life to its fullest.” The only son of a Delhi University professor went to the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “The push to send me into the hostels gave me the freedom to think independently, fend for myself, and learn to overcome hurdles smartly,” recalls Minocha. This independence, says Minocha, has been very crucial in his career. “There was no push from my parents to study for a particular career. There was a dinner once, when I told the guest that I wanted to teach Sanskrit. It didn’t go down well with him and he took my father aside and advised him to correct my perspective. I heard my father retort that I was right,” remembers Minocha. After graduation, Minocha joined the DCM Toyota Light Commercial Vehicle project. “This was the time when multinationals were tying up with Indian firms in the automotive sector, and the industry was on the boom curve,” remembers Minocha.

The nineteenth employee in the nascent company, Minocha was asked to join the marketing team at DCM Toyota. “As an engineering graduate from IIT, marketing was not something I wanted to do. The role stank of a charlatan’s, and I didn’t think the job lived up to my expectations,” reminisces Minocha. The hiring CEO offered him a two year trial, and promised to shift him back to engineering at the end of that period. In the two years that ensued, Minocha traveled extensively. “As a twenty one year old, not many had the chance to drive a brand new LCV and meet new people every day. Life was good,” laughs Minocha. At the end of two years, T. G. Kripalani, then CEO called him back for a career review, and not surprisingly, Minocha asked to remain in the marketing department. After another three years, he realized that if he were to continue in marketing, a degree would definitely help. “I did not apply to any of the Indian b-schools, becuase at that time they were admitting only fresh graduates, and I thought I would be better off in a class that had more experience than me,” recounts Minocha. In 1987, Minocha went to Yale and when he graduated, found the markets had collapsed around him. Luckily, he found an opening at Cummins in Minneapolis.

“The international marketing department gave me the European sector,” says Minocha, “which was surprising.” A year after his hiring, Minocha asked the senior who had hired him about her reason for this. “She said that she had found Europeans complaining about the American arrogance, and I was a good test. India was as multicultural as Europe, and she felt that somebody from India would not find this multicultural continent too difficult,” says Minocha. Handling international marketing for consumer power generation products at Cummins for three years was a good experience, and Minocha was asked to handle worldwide responsibilities. “I was reluctant to take up this offer, because, though the role said worldwide, 80 percent of the market was in the U.S. itself, which is such a large market,” says Minocha. “But again, I remembered the DCM Toyota experience, and agreed to take up this offer.” After three more years, Minocha left to join a lesser-known company, Greco. “If I were to look at my eighteen years of experience, the two years at Greco was a bad experience,” says Minocha. “At least I am lucky that I need to wash out only two years from my resume.”

From Greco, Minocha moved to Rhode Island with Allied Signal, a company that made automotive brake components. “This was the rockiest start,” recalls Minocha. The person who hired him left, followed by the department head and finally, the division’s president himself. “My wife had gone to London on a consulting stint, and I was supposed to settle our home in Rhode Island. I called her up to warn her that I would be flying out any time to join her, given the spree of resignations at Allied,” laughs Minocha.

But after that rocky start, Allied was the best experience, says Minocha. In his stint there, he worked in a variety of responsibilities—in purchasing, customer relationship, and many other departments that truly added to his skills. In two years’ time, the Allied division was up for sale, and Minocha was head-hunted to join Kodak. “They wanted somebody who had done true marketing. They had seen enough resumes from sales people who claimed to have done true marketing, but none from a true marketing background. Also, they wanted somebody who came in with a fresh perspective—somebody who hadn’t done any health imaging, or anything similar,” recalls Minocha.

In 1999, the division was migrating from analog to digital and this threw up new challenges and possibilities for Minocha’s skills. “I thought this would get me out of my comfort zone, and pitch me on the other side of the table,” says Minocha. Marketing is like the high beams on a car—you see what is far ahead and store away information to change your strategy, says Minocha, while sales is more like the low beams—you see what is ahead, respond to immediate signals and lead the operations.

“It is important to understand what a customer needs and see if you have a product that can meet the needs. Only then can you market a product. Otherwise you are simply selling you wares without truly creating a market,” says Minocha. As the CMO at Kodak’s health imaging division, Minocha directs global product and service marketing strategies for Kodak’s second largest business. He also leads all health imaging marketing operations worldwide, including product marketing, market research, training and education.

“It is important to step out of your comfort zone,” says Minocha. “I was getting into very comfortable zones at every job, but I pushed myself to plunge into newer territories every time.” From automotive to spray painting devices and now to health imaging, it has been very rich learning, says Minocha. “At Kodak, we have created an informal session that is held every fortnight or so, dubbed “thinking aloud”—playing on the phrase that thinking is allowed—where the only rule is to bring some information not connected with health imaging,” Minocha says. “We can learn a lot from outside our industry, and this open learning is very important in everybody’s career.” The frenzy to “become” digital, says Minocha, was an artificial one. “From analog to digital was only a continuum change, not a phase change. People have not become any different because they became digital. This is the biggest learning we had at Kodak,” Minocha reveals. As a marketing person, Minocha thinks that technology should be given its time and pace to spread into people’s lives.

“There are many times when I have heard somebody in my department say he or she wants to recruit somebody who is “digital.” What does that mean? That we have stopped dealing with analog customers? That customers have turned from analog to digital overnight?” asks Minocha. It is at these times, warns Minocha, that it is necessary to step out of one’s shoes and re-examine the situation.

“Two years ago, my wife and I went on a holiday to the jungles of Venezuala. For six weeks, we lived in boats on the rivers, swatted away mosquitoes, and were six hours away from the nearest medical facility. What it taught me was to improvise with what I had at my disposal. Every day products took up new roles and meanings. The point is, there is smartness in everybody. It shouldn’t take a lot to bring this part out.”

In Minocha’s climb up the ladder, he says he hasn’t experienced the glass ceiling. “Of course, there will come a time when everyone finds himself or herself at an uncomfortable spot. I will be very disappointed with myself if I were to find myself in such a spot, and not have spotted it coming a long way back,” says Minocha.