March - 2000 - issue > Cover

Sometimes when I look back at my life and where I came from, I am simply amazed. I was born and raised in very humble circumstances. My parents, my sister, and I lived for the first eleven years of my life in a one-room “chawl” in Bombay. All four of us lived in one room and even shared the bathroom with a bunch of neighbors! Looking back, I am thankful for the farsightedness of my parents. While they were poor, they valued education and were keen that my sister and I have an excellent education. They spent all their time and money making sure that we did because they believed that education was the most important thing in life. That much is obvious even in the name they gave me - “Subodh” means “good knowledge”! And boy, did I live up to that name! I had devoured the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica by the time I was 12 and later in life went on to get a Ph.D.
I was educated at St. Xavier’s School, in Bombay, and pursued a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Podar College. My uncle had settled in the U.S. since the early sixties and every time he visited us, I listened with fascination to the stories of his life in the US. His stories and the photographs he sent us helped shape my dream of coming to the US even when I was a child.

Unfortunately, I found out that it was very difficult for me to come to the U.S. for higher education with only a Bachelor of Commerce degree under my belt. The main problem was that unlike Indian engineers and computer scientists, I had to finance my education myself. This was simply beyond my means. So I decided to give up my “American” dream and decided to focus on a career in India. I began an apprenticeship and studied toward becoming a Chartered Accountant. After I became a Chartered Accountant, I worked for a few years in various corporations in India, and soon became the Finance Manager at one of India’s leading advertising agencies. At the same time, the hope of ever reaching America started fading away.

Then one day, I caught a lucky break. My cousin from the U.S. was visiting India and in one conversation, she suggested that I showed strong promise of being successful in an American academic setting and urged me to pursue an education in the U.S. Then I caught another lucky break. Tennessee Tech University offered me a small scholarship in their MBA program, which was enough to get me to the U.S.

Given my Chartered Accountant background and work experience in India, I found that the MBA program was not challenging at all. Around the same time, I started realizing that the hectic corporate life of an MBA was not really for me. I had always been a man of ideas, and the academic lifestyle began appealing to me. I also realized that the academic profession in the U.S. was not as poorly paid as it was in India, and one could make a decent living as a professor.

Working as the finance man at the advertising agency in India had exposed me to the fields of marketing and advertising and I had developed a great interest in these areas. So when I wanted to pursue a Ph.D., I decided that I had had enough of finance and accounting and that it would be a lot more fun to get a Ph.D. in marketing instead.

Unfortunately, the U.S. economy was not doing very well when I graduated with a Ph.D. I had few job interviews and no job offers! My four years of hard work as a Ph.D. student seemed to be fruitless. Then one day, I got a call from a professor at San Francisco State University. Four professors had suddenly resigned from their jobs, and they were looking for someone to teach classes there. The catch: they did not have enough time to make me a formal offer as a tenure-track professor (yes, academia is as slow as it ever used to be, even in this internet world) but I could work there as an adjunct for a year, without any guarantee of a tenure-track job.

I decided to take a chance. After all, I was single and did not have any family responsibilities. And more importantly, I was going to be in San Francisco and not some small university town in the South or the Midwest! San Francisco had always been one of my favorite cities and this would give me a chance to live here. Of course, as they say, I never looked back.

At a professional level, I began to do research in brand management and had my research accepted in the major academic journals. My “practical” approach to education appealed very much to San Francisco State University’s working MBA students. My work record was so strong that I was awarded tenure two years before my scheduled time! And I began to develop such a reputation as a scholar in the area of brand management that I had numerous consulting opportunities and was even invited to teach in Stanford’s prestigious MBA program.

Living in the Bay Area, the hotbed of innovative enterprises, I began to be fascinated with entrepreneurs and how they create and nurture new businesses. The focus of my scholarship and consulting has now shifted to this area. I have thoroughly enjoyed helping and exchanging information with entrepreneurs. Watching entrepreneurs come up with interesting ideas and concepts and then helping them develop them into business opportunities has been immensely satisfying for me professionally. My success with Gemteq Software is a case in point.

Culturally and socially, the Bay Area has been a great place to live. The people are relaxed, friendly and free of the biases that I experienced living in the South. I continue to enjoy the diversity of the population with its different foods, music, and cultures. And this is also where I have met the woman of my dreams, my future wife. And where I expect to live happily thereafter!