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YPO Chennai Gateway
A 24-year-old Chapter, YPO Chennai has maintained its ability to expand, grow and at the same time retain its closeknit culture. All members and their respective families know each other well and maintain a strong bond. As the YPO and YPO Gold strength reached 100, the Executive Committee began discussing options for growing without compromising the close-knit culture that exists in Chennai. YPO International also recommends that once a chapter has more than 100 to 125 members, the city should look at starting another Chapter. From all the discussions the idea of creating the new YPO Chennai Gateway Chapter was born Rajeev Mecheri, Sriram Sivaram, Vijay Sankar and Harish Lakshman from the YPO Chennai Chapter took on the responsibility of launching the Gateway Chennai. Vijay Sankar took on the role of Finance and Membership Chair and Harish Lakshman that of Chapter Chair and Learning Chair. In a span of 9 months, the Chapter was formed with the necessary approvals of YPO International and 19 new members were on-boarded. It was a moment of celebration and excitement for YPO Chennai to help create the second chapter. The launch event was held at the Madras Club on 25th August with an attendance of close to a 100 members and spouses from both the Chennai Chapter and the Chennai Gateway Chapter. Ashish Bharat Ram, Regional Chair, Harsh Bansal, Regional Forum Chair and Preeti Singh, Regional Director were in Chennai for this occasion. After a brief introduction about the launch of the Chapter by Harish and Vijay, Ashish was called upon to formally launch the Chapter with a Champagne toast. All the 19 new members were invited on stage for the toast. The launch was then followed by the main event – “In conversation with A.Vellayan, Executive Chairman, Murugappa Group.” The talk was moderated by Vivek Chandrasekaran, a Chennai Gateway member. It was a very interesting session with the resource sharing Murugappa Group’s journey to a successful multi-billion dollar conglomerate and his own leadership lessons. The Chennai Gateway Chapter is planning to organize 5 events this calendar year, including a retreat. The two Chapters are also planning several joint events in the coming years. We hope that the Chennai Chapter and Gateway Chennai continue to grow and maintain a healthy relationship for further development and strong connectivity amongst YPOers.
Malavika Harish Lakshman (Spouse, YPO Chennai)