One virtue that distinguishes exemplary business leaders in the corporate world is their passion for accomplishment. Creating a fine balance between business, performance, and character leads to the birth of a business leader who becomes the torchbearer for taking the organization forward. Tapping the emotions of the employees and the ability to gauge the future has been the forte of business leaders for ages. With the change of century and advent of the new-age, one thing which remains constant within the business leaders is their commitment to challenge themselves every day.
We present you the motivational journey of Hari Krishnan Puravankara who has managed to grab the eye-balls of the business fraternity within the fastest possible time span. As the Founder–CEO of Black Pepper Technologies, Hari has been successful in cementing the business amongst the big players in today’s competitive market.
Entrepreneurship – A Game of Patience, Persistence, and Diligence
Right from his school days, he carried the traits of a leader which was further groomed by taking leadership roles at school and being the Student’s leader at the University. Also, he was very passionate about the social issues from the early days of his life.
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality” – Walt Disney
Incorporating this value to his professional life, Hari is an ‘avid-dreamer’ with having a firm footing on the ground to realize his dreams in the most optimal manner. An Engineering graduate from the prestigious Cochin University, he joined Wipro Technologies and led a very pivotal role in building the semiconductor roadmap for the company. Later, he joined Magma Design Automation, wherein he led the Application Support Team for the Asia-Pacific region. This exposure along with being a part of the core management team assisted him to have a deep insight into the key management activities. Additionally, he got an opportunity to strengthen his professional network which yielded positive results in building the business of his entrepreneurial venture.
Looking at the bigger picture, he realized that the ultimate challenge was to build a company that can accelerate and convert the ideation into products and create a niche segment in designing the chip of semiconductors and allied products. As a dynamic and a visionary entrepreneur, his objective was to create a platform that can transform ideas into reality. Analyzing the market and the Indian intellects working within a limited space, he dreamt of launching a full-fledged hardware company originating from the Indian soil. Expanding his ambitious thoughts, he was determined to list his company on the Indian Stock Exchange with a billion-dollar valuation.
Unearthing the Vision of BlackPepper
Believing in collective entrepreneurship, Hari always concentrated on keeping the team motivated, challenged and focused on the core vision of Black Pepper. The company aims to democratize innovation by transforming ideas into tangible products and inculcate the spirit of innovation among all. It inspires people to think ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas, practice innovation and get involved in every facet of the Black Pepper story. Creating an enduring impact on the society by building innovative hardware solutions for emerging industries Medical & Healthcare, Automotive, Defence, Industrial Automation and IoT has been one of the core objectives of the organization.
Fuel that ignites Motivation and Performance
Hari asserts “Being in the middle of creating value for everyone, including individuals, family, society and the nation has been the epicenter of my vision”. For Hari, purpose and intent are the key attributes that lead BlackPepper to deliver successful results. He advises everyone to read the famous book – ‘The Alchemist’ as he is a firm believer of the outcome of the story. Challenging new innovations have been one of the ways of getting motivated for the entire Pepperite family.
Family – The Internal Support System
Family values, tradition, and even culture have a very crucial role to play in the upbringing of every individual and the same happened with Hari. The fact that his parents being school teachers and committed towards the social well-being had set the trigger in Hari’s life to incorporate these core values and implement them forever. Thanks to his extensive busy corporate life, he has travelled to multiple countries across the globe but none of the perks were attractive enough to hold him back at any of the foreign soils. Developing an innovative-hardware company was his ambition, however taking utmost care and living along with his parents is a responsibility, which he cherishes for his life.
Diverse Range of Leading-edge Products
Hari laid the foundation of BlackPepper in 2009 with a mission to be recognized as a hardware-oriented ‘gold standard’ in product realization. On the verge of completing a successful decade, the company has come a long way in terms of success and innovation!
Although 2009 was not the best of the times to start a business, due to the market collapse in 2008, the company faced its share of struggles and hiccups during the initial years. It took around three years to build the initial plan and stabilize the technological platform along with various key processes. Sustaining the initial years reflected the robust core foundations along with ensuring the future growth and scale.
Today, BlackPepper is an ‘arm-Approved Design Partner’ (ADP) and a trusted design partner for more than a dozen of tier –I global semi-conductors companies. After firming their identity within the Indian shores, the company is expanding its global footprints banking on their core assets – LTE (Lean Tail Engineering) and EYWA. EYWA is a home-grown technology framework that allows optimization of human and computer resources enabling complex designs to predictably converge to closure. BlackPepper is a leader in solving complex silicon and system designs for various market segments. The company caters to Automotive, Defence, Medical, IoT-based industries and Industrial Automation, to name a few.
Showcasing the Feats of Hard work
Under the diligent leadership of Hari, BlackPepper stands amongst the leading players and has defined its own space in the industry. The awards and recognitions conferred to Hari and the company highlights the technical capability and the trust earned delivering innovative solutions to their prestigious clients. Few of the noticeable achievements that add jewels in the crown are:
- First Prize in the ELCINA defEnnovation Awards for 2018 in the MSME category
- Hari Krishnan Puravankara – Most influential CEO of the Year
- Named among the 10 most promising Semiconductor Companies – 2018
- Only company to be an ARM-ADP in India & tenth in the world
Eclipsing Challenges and Rising to the Occasion
Right from the inception, BlackPepper has been a niche technology-focused company that demanded technological innovations, investments, and the right mindset to flourish. Analyzing the experience of the global companies in terms of getting sold or merged into large corporations, due to financial crunch was a learning curve for BlackPepper. Attracting investment through equity or being dependent on debt was never an option for the company. However, since acquiring capital was the basic requirement for further expansion, fuelling the initial growth cycle was the biggest hurdle for the company. From building technological platforms, hiring the right talents, competing in the market, a regular inflow of capital was required, and so raising capital from banks was a daunting task. However, strong determination and confidence helped Hari to overcome these challenges and sailing in high waves strengthened the company for the future.
Leader’s Perspective on the Industry
In today’s world, semiconductors are omnipresent and with technical innovations and evolution in the future, semiconductors would be an integral component of every intelligent device. As electronic devices continue to proliferate, the semiconductor industry is prospering at a rapid pace and the meteoric rise in the growth of semiconductor manufacturing companies has created a mark in the global market.
Futuristic Viewpoint
Hari carries a very optimistic outlook about the future of the semiconductor industry. Backed by the data available from various researches, the worldwide revenue is slated to be around 451billion USD in 2019, an increase of 7.5 percent from the previous year. The IoT market alone is set to reach about eleven trillion USD by 2025.
The Indian market is set to play a major role in achieving the global targets. India is poised to evolve as the next global manufacturing hub; BlackPepper looks forward to setting new standards of excellence in electronics and introducing a new range of products & services, even to the farthest corners of the globe. Hari highlights sense, compute, secure and network as the four pillars that are aligned with the culture and ecosystem of BlackPepper. Having amassed the required resources and expertise, BlackPepper has emerged as a matured contributor in answering the complex technology processes in the industry.
Source :-The 10 Most Creative Corporate Leaders to watch in 2018
