30 RAMACHANDRAN V K
KATTIKULAM BHARATHAN
‘NRIs keen to invest in Kerala’
Makes Paris wear in India
I t may be paradoxical that Ramachandran Vallathkunnummal who belongs to an ancient agricultural family of Vadakara, Kozhikode, strayed into business. Running a freight forwarding and construction company in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with offices in Dammam, Jeddah and Dubai, Ramachandran has three brothers and one sister, all doing different businesses.
F or Kattikulam Bharathan, France, nay, its capital Paris, is home from home. He frequents the world’s fashion city so often that it has become part of his psyche.
Ramachandran already had some business background when he arrived in Riyadh in 1977. His Commerce degree also perhaps aided him in starting the business, which, he says, is going on smoothly with a group of dedicated, hardworking workforce from different parts of the world. He and his family back home have some trading business (marble, wholesale and retail, and a dairy farm) at Vadakara. In early 2008, they started an IT firm, Globees dot Com, in Bangalore with a branch office in Kochi. “In my opinion, Kerala is a blessed land for new entrepreneurs with tremendous opportunities and quality human resources. Unnecessary interruptions of work at business establishments by trade unions with strikes, hartals etc should be controlled. Road infrastructure should be developed, which in turn would save valuable time and cost relocation. An equally important thing is that uninterrupted supply of electricity should be ensured”, Ramachandran says about Kerala’s poor show in the industrial field. The Left Democratic Front, he says, should drop the traditional detest of new technology and development. “All NRIs are keen to invest in their homeland. But the Government and the departments concerned should create a pleasant atmosphere with a liberal approach to attract investments with minimum red tape (legal formalities) and maximum cooperation”, he says. Ramachandran has a plan to invest in the tourism and hospitality industries in Kerala “if the climate permits”. Mrs Girija Ramachandran is a homemaker. Their eldest son Ragin is a BTech. Nikle is the second child and Kevin the third.
THOMAS JACOB
Active in Asian media sector Thomas Jacob has joined IFRA as Deputy CEO and Managing Director in charge of the Greater Asia-Pacific Region. He will be based in Singapore. He is an MBA with high honour from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business. As a summa cum laude, he was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, the US-based honour society for management. He is a trained engineer in electronics and telecommunications, having graduated with distinction from the Karnataka Regional Engineering College. He also underwent advanced studies in computer networking at ICIS, Singapore. The new MD, an industry veteran, has been active in the Asian media scene for over 24 years. Prior to joining IFRA, he worked for Associated Newspapers Limited, publisher active in the Asian media scene of Daily Mail and Metro in the UK. As the International Development Director, he conceptualized a compact midmarket newspaper for India and initiated a JV with the India Today Group to launch the new newspaper, Mail Today. Jacob is not new to the IFRA world either. Before joining ANL, he established IFRA’s presence in Asia where he set up the two subsidiaries, IFRA Asia and IFRA India. He started the Chinese edition of IFRA’s former newspaper techniques, brought out the Asian Newspaper Directory and successfully launched the Publish Asia conference Expo and the Asian Media Awards events during his previous tenure with IFRA. Born and brought up in Kochi, Thomas Jacob is the son of Prof K C Jacob, the former Professor of Economics at Sacred Heart College, Kochi. He now lives in Singapore with his wife and two children. An avid golfer, he also enjoys sweating out at the badminton court. However, on longer breaks, he says that he would rather spend his time enjoying nature at the national parks and forests.
When Bharathan, son of Purathissery (Irinjalakuda) Kattikulam Kumaran and Kalyani, ventured into business more than four decades ago the going was not smooth. He never went to a business school. Nor did he have any college education. He had nothing, really, except the will and desire to build something that he could call his own. Thus was born ‘Kumar Diffusion’, the outlet for Bharathan’s legendary drive (‘diffusion’ in French means ‘distribution’). Named after his father and situated in the heart of Paris, the showroom displays and sells the garments that French, Italian and German professionals design for Bharathan. In the modern, palatial house Bharathan has built at Kizhuthani, an Irinjalakuda suburb, you feel the presence of clothes designed in Europe and manufactured entirely in North India. Why North India, not Kerala? “These cannot be made in Kerala, especially the printing is difficult. Cost also is very high in our State. Moreover fashion stuff cannot be delayed. They have to be in Paris within 60 days of receipt of orders. And delivery in Kerala is not prompt”, he says. He has his distribution outlet too, supplying goods to
others and arranging exhibitions in France. Bharathan came to Paris in 1972. Kumar Diffusion was the first and exclusive showroom that imported readymade dresses, especially womenswear, from India. An active worker of the Sree Narayana movements, he is an ardent follower of the Guru’s teachings, spreading them as and when the opportunity arrives. No wonder he was the instant choice for the award instituted by the Sree Narayana World Council, New York, for services rendered in the field. He also manages the Karalam Vocational Higher Secondary School, near Irinjalakuda, which was earlier not functioning well. Now it has more than 1,000 students and offers courses in various trades. Bharathan laments the erosion of values in Kerala society. Even teachers and doctors have no commitment to serve the community, he says. Despite all these shortcomings he admits that Kerala is a better place to live in, the most beautiful on earth. Bharathan is also associated with the activities of the Unnayi Warrier Smaraka Kalanilayam, Irinjalakuda, and is connected with a host of other organizations including the Malayala Manorama Balajana Sakhyam of which he was Convener of the Madhya Mekhala Sahakari Forum. Besides, he was State President of the All-Kerala Aided Schools Management Association. His family consists, besides wife Sudha, of daughters Linta and Lucky and son Lal.
VINSON XAVIER PALATHINGAL
Excels as entrepreneur and professional
It so happens that some job-seekers in the United States turn entrepreneurs and random entrepreneurs turn job-seekers. Only a small percentage of expatriates have found themselves excelling in both entrepreneurship and professional careers. Vinson Xavier Palathingal belongs to the latter category. Armed with a BTech degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Calicut, Vinson went to the US in 1992 and took his MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Nevada there. His rise to the position that he occupies today has been meteoric. Vinson carried with him to the US the immense experience he gained back home at KITCO Ltd, Kochi, where he worked as Project Engineer and Consultant from 1989 to 1992. In 1995, Vinson joined Maryland State Highway Administration, Frederick, as Civil Engineer (Inspections). There he provided engineering inspection services on various interstate highway construction projects and was involved in job scheduling. While working as IT Analyst/Programmer at the Metro Washington Council of Governments (COG) in Washington DC, Vinson played a key role in a team that redesigned, developed, implemented and fine-tuned COG’s existing water quality and waste water databases into a relational Oracle database, an environmental data depository for the DC Metro region. It was his stint at FannieMae, a Fortune 500 company, as Business Systems Technologist that perhaps paved the way, some time later, for his launching in 1998 of his own Amaram Technology Corporation at Falls Church. At FannieMae he provided software development, testing and test automation services. In 2000, he played a key role in a testing effort, one of the most extensive in corporate US. As a highly successful and result-oriented entrepreneur, Vinson has been heading the operations since 1999 of Amaram as President and CEO. The firm provides systems design, embedded systems and socket programming, Web/software development, software testing, test automation, quality assurance, data warehousing, data analysis and data base management consulting to major corporations in the Washington DC Metro area. Its major clients include FreddieMac, FannieMae, the Department of Labour, MCI Worldcom and Manugistics. Amaram has a back office at Kadavanthra in Kochi. Vinson was Secretary of the Kerala Association of Greater Washington (KAGW). Asha is his wife. Xavier and Stephen are their children. PASSLINE
May 31-June 30, 2012