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| This CEO didn't have
an easy route to the top, but instead of letting
his setbacks break his sprit, he learned from them
and was made stronger by them. |
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| After receiving his bachelor's of
engineering in electronics and communication in
1987 from one of the oldest Engineering Institutes
in Asia, University of Roorkee (now called the Indian
Institute of Technology), Praphul Misra went to
work for Uptron in India, first in marketing support
and then in sales. His primary responsibility was
to generate lead through cold calls and referrals.
"If that wasn't tough enough for rookie engineer,
I had to collect payments fro installed systems,
as well," Misra says. That's when he decided to
top off his education with an MBA. |
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| Misra's "American Dream" began with
washing dishes in the cafeteria of UB's Talbert
Hall for minimum wage (plus food perks). Despite
his determination to work his way up from the bottom,
it was six months before he wrote his family to
tell how he was supplementing his income, for fear
that his father would call him home for taking on
such menial work. |
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| But it wasn't long before the up-and-coming
student found work as student assistant in the Jacobs
computer lab, where hands-on experience helping
students and staff with their day-to-day problems
was to give him an edge over competition in the
years to come. |
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| Misra graduated with his MBA in
'91 when even U.S. students were having a hard time
finding work, yet he used his networking skills
to land position at M/A/R/C Inc., in Dallas, then
the largest custom research company in the U.S.
At M/A/R/C, he worked on brands such as Pizza Hut,
Dell Computers and Hewlett-Packard in ad tracking
and product development. "The work was stressful,"
says Misra, "but not as stressful at the pink slip
that came 12 months later." |
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| Although Misra says he would have
benefited from an MBA course in 'managing failure,"
he could have been the instructor, judging from
his subsequent course of action. After a few weeks
of adjusting to the reality of the situation, Misra's
first step was to reactive his professional support
group. He got involved with the local chapter of
the American Marketing Association, made customized
versions of his resume for various industry verticals
and optional functional roles and, in his words,
"I networked like crazy!" He landed at Publicis/Bloom
Advertising shortly thereafter. |
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| He went on to become a junior partner
at The WorldMark Group, Inc., also in Dallas, where
he handled projects across categories, including
Business Process Re-engineering, customer satisfaction,
image and brand equity measurement and international
research for Fortune 500 clients such as Microsoft,
J.C. Penney, St. Paul Medical Center and ElectroCom
Automation. In 1996 he went to work for Result:
McCann, India's third-largest direct marketing agency.
While there, he was instrumental in delivering Integrated
Communication Solutions to key clients, spearheading
new business efforts, establishing strategic alliances
with vendors and leading a national team to provide
strategic direction to the IT Plans at McCann-Erickson
India. |
|
| In 2000, Misra joined NetCarrots
Loyalty Services as CEO. NetCarrots is a specialty
consulting company that design and manages customer
relationship (loyalty) programs to help clients
form profitable relationship with their customers.
He is leading the company's consolidation and expansion
initiatives in the Indian Loyalty services market.
Having designed and driven some very successful
loyalty programs in India and U.S., he strongly
believes that just one corner of the Indian Loyalty
canvas has been sketched, and is intent on painting
the whole picture. |
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| He lives in New Delhi with his wife,
Sukanya (whom he met while at UB on the forerunner
of the intranet, the IBM CMS system), their daughter,
Manjari (9), son, Arjun (3), and dog, Scooby Doo.
They enjoy traveling as a family and also like to
indulge in a favorite Indian pastime of watching
movies. |
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| When asked about his five-year and
ten-year plans, Misra is ready. "In five years,
I see myself leading a global team of professionals
helping keep client's customer smiling,"
he says. "In 10 years, I see a professor Misra,
very much like my guru, Professor Arun Jain, sharing
my experiences with students and practicing managers
the world. |
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Rising in the Face of Adversity