Guest Lecture By Mr RS Rajan, Co-Founder & Director At Livpure Private Ltd On "Contemporary Leadership"

On the 3rd of October, 2018, the students of Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur had the privilege of hosting Mr. RS Rajan, Co-Founder & Director at Livpure Private Ltd. for a Guest Lecture on “Contemporary Leadership”. A visionary with a passion of leaving behind a safer environment for the next generations, Mr. Rajan has focused on delivering superior water purification systems for home and commercial use across India. Mr. Rajan has been honoured with the Water-Hall-of-Fame award for his exemplary contribution to the industry in a career spanning over three decades.     Mr. Rajan began his session with a laudatory note on the history and heritage of IIT Kharagpur, followed by highlighting that leadership is not about the position that one holds, but about the responsibility that the leader shoulders in solving problems. According to him, the most crucial things that contemporary leaders should worship are speed, evolution, automation, agility, and urgency. In this VUCA age, instilling a sense of urgency and encouraging innovation amongst subordinates is the way to go forward to make things work efficiently. Talking about his experience in Livpure, Mr. Rajan recalled the hardships that he and his team had to endure while building the enterprise. From being a late entrant in the water purifier market to being awarded as the most attractive brand, his team learned the importance of staying committed, devising a long-term strategy, gathering adequate funding and looking for the right attitude instead of talent while hiring. Mr Rajan told that the four strategic pillars on which Livpure’s success rests are innovation, brand, channel and services. He cited several examples such as launching the first ever purifier with touch-technology, organizing road shows in small towns, serving untapped overseas markets such as Afghanistan and having Mr. Sachin Tendulkar in the endorsements, who is also a shareholder of Livpure. As he reached the end of his highly educative session, Mr. Rajan highlighted the importance of preparedness for unforeseen situations while referring to the unfortunate fire incident at the Privi plant.  Mr. Rajan answered all the questions from the audience with great wit and interest, explaining the significance of rewarding hard-working employees, learning from failures and staying humble. While talking about conducting CSR activities (including developing pilot purifier plants in schools to contain arsenic poisoning), he accentuated that the efforts of leaders should bring value not only to the company but also to the community. Concluding with his golden message to “Dream Big”, Mr. Rajan left a long-lasting influence on the budding managers of the institute who thoroughly enjoyed his enlightening lecture.