For Meena Ganesh, one of India’s top women executives, the wheel has come full circle. A graduate of Madras University and IIM-Calcutta, Ganesh’s first work assignment was with the computer education and training pioneer NIIT Ltd (1985-1992), where she initiated computer training programmes for education institutions. After an interregnum of 23 years, during which she switched tracks to work in top-ranked companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Microsoft India and UK-based retail chain TESCO, Ganesh has returned to the education sector as chief executive of the Bangalore-based Edurite Technologies (estimated annual revenue: Rs.40 crore), which offers IT-enabled products, processes and services to 3,000 schools countrywide. Ganesh took charge of Edurite in September 2008, 11 months after it was acquired by TutorVista, a Bangalore-based online learning com-pany promoted by serial entrepreneur and husband — K. Ganesh.
Undoubtedly she has the credentials for her new job. After quitting NIIT in 1992 she signed up with Price-WaterhouseCoopers. In 1995 she resigned to accept an offer to work with the IT multinational Microsoft India, helping set up their internet and consulting businesses. Five years later, after having proved herself in the top echelons of the corporate world, she quit to team up with her husband, whom she met when both of them were students at IIM-Calcutta, to co-promote CustomerAsset, a business process outsourcing firm with a 2,700 seat call centre in Bangalore and Mumbai. In 2004 the duo sold Customer Asset to ICICI for $22 million (Rs.105.6 crore).
Not one to rest on her laurels, Meena moved on immediately to her next challenge, as chief executive of UK-based TESCO’s (the world’s third largest retailer) operations in India. In August last year, subsequent to Tutor Vista’s acquisition of Edurite Technologies, she resigned from TESCO to take charge of Edurite with the brief to expand its operations countrywide.
Just four months into her new job, Ganesh has already signed up two major collaboration agreements for Edurite: with Macmillan India to make available its DigitALly technology to Macmillan customers and with the Manipal Education Group to provide management and education solutions to schools under the banner of Manipal K-12 Education India (P) Ltd. “My short-term objective is to increase the number of schools using Edurite’s technology enabled learning solutions from 3,000 to 4,000 over the next 12 months. Simultaneously, with our new partners we have started developing technologically advanced and holistic teacher training programs and designing ICT-rich content for the supplementary education market,” says Ganesh, who heads a 250-strong team out of Edurite’s Bangalore headquarters.
Yet her biggest project is to transform Edurite into one of the top providers of ICT-enabled teaching-learning products and services in the country. With two decades of hands-on experience, Ganesh is confident she can “build an organisation that brings about real change in Indian education”.
Fair winds.
Debolina Sengupta (Bangalore)