Ravi Chauhan, managing director, Nortel India, has a leadership philosophy focused on sharing his vision with all stakeholders in the organisation. He idolises Mahatma Gandhi for his combination of integrity and moral strength, and sees every stepping- stone in life as a destination in itself. It is an approach that has yielded rich dividends.

I grew up in the beautiful hills of Guwahati. My father was in the railway services, so we stayed in railway townships in a number of places—Guwahati, Varanasi and, Lucknow, to name just a few.

I have three sisters—two elder and one younger to me. My mother was a housewife and did a great job of bringing up all of us.

We had a wonderful childhood; I remember there used to be so much space to play around in—children today have hardly any place for themselves.

Railway colonies were an extremely nice place to grow up in. It was a cosmopolitan crowd with families from different backgrounds. We learnt so much about people, and also learnt to live together in spite of so much diversity. In retrospect, I am glad I grew up that way. Moving around to different cities gave me a great perspective, and studying in different schools was also a great learning experience.

A passion for railroad models and books

While in school, my favourite subject was physics. It was at that time that I developed an interest that has now grown into a passionate hobby—that of making model railroads. As a child in school, I used to put together a number of smaller models with things that were easily available. I used to make exact replicas of railroad stations—the complete layout, with electrical engineering connections. Even today I love making railroad models. But a hobby like this requires two things—space and time. Now, neither of these is easily available, so the hobby is not getting enough airing. Of course, I do miss that excitement sometimes; but then, that’s the price for growing up. As a child, I didn’t have enough money for all the things I needed to make a perfect railroad model. Now, when I can afford it, there’s no time!

Another interest was reading. I read everything—just devoured the printed word, whether it was humour, fiction or non-fiction. I still read voraciously, everything from The Economist to Sydney Sheldon or John Grisham. I think that is another thing that has helped in widening my perspective and, thus, given me a tremendous advantage.

IIM-A: The turning point

I did a BE (electronics and communication) and passed with honours from Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology in 1986. After passing out of college, I joined Godrej Boyce, Mumbai, as an R&D engineer for a few months.

I then went on to IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) to do a post-graduate diploma in management. That, I can safely say, was the turning point in my life and my career.

Once in IIM-A, I saw how little I knew, and how much more there was for me to learn. I had a great childhood, a very close and loving family, but it was only after coming to IIM that I could appreciate how much further I had to go. I was also lucky in the sense that I had a great peer group in my batch—almost all of them are doing very well for themselves today. This group and the faculty and, of course, the whole atmosphere at IIM has moulded me like nothing else. It was really a humbling experience, which taught me a great deal.

Getting into professional mode

After graduating from IIM, I joined Wipro and worked there for one year. In 1990, I joined Digital Equipment India Limited in Bangalore, and worked there for six years. In 1996, I moved to Cabletron Systems, and as country head, set up its service provider business for APAC, in Bangalore. I was director markets, Asia Pacific and was responsible for Cabletron’s Internet service provider, telecom and wide area networking segments across Asia Pacific, the key markets being Japan, China and Australia.