Pranams to the teachers !

Today being the Teachers' Day, let us salute the teachers, who helped us to grow to this level and and wish them very good health and prosperity.

My sweet memories on the School, the teachers Ms.Joseph, Ms.Radha, and them to the High School - RR- Rajagopalan, Rangarajan (Tamizh) B.Radhakrishnan, PTG, TKG, KTG, Kannan (maths), Basheer (maths), KND (Desikachar), KDR (K.Dharmaraj, Accounts), SRK (Economics), Janakiraman (Navy), Madhavan (Commerce), VPKrishnamurthy, Mani (Crafts), AV (Sanskrit) and the PT masters - Karmegam, Radhakrishnan(NCC-Air wing), Selvaraj and Nammalvar (NCC-Army).

In my college - DP (Durai Pandian, Accounts), Kanakasabesan (Stats) Arun (Tamizh),  Kayaroganan (Tamizh), Suresh (English), SKR (Ramakrishnan, Income Tax), Balamurugan (Auditing), Ramasamy (Commercial Law), Kalyanaraman (Accounts), M.Sakthivelmurugan (Corporate Law), COSTING, Gopal Muralidhar (Management Accounting). They laid the seed for my higher education.

In CWA - Sundaresan, who was my guru in Costing. If I am good in costing today, the credit goes to him. Sankaranarayanan, Sethuraman, Sundaram (4 S) .

In CA - Nagarajan (Accounts), Murali (Auditing and Company Law..thanks to Murali for inspiring me in quoting the relevant sections, when you say something on Company Law), Thangapandian, Sivakumar (Standard Costing), LSS (Maths & Stats), VenkatSivakumar (Costing). My flair for Taxation increased because of T.N.Manohar & Bhupathi. Of course my friend T.G.Suresh (TGS), whom I never knew that he is a professor in my college.

In IIM - (Pofessors) - MSN, Ramesh Kumar (Mrkg), Amit Gupta, Shyamal Roy, Ganesh Prabhu, Padmini Srinivasan, Ashok Thampy. Krishna Sundar - He taught the supply chain management by a beer game. A tough person in class - cool outside. Krishnamoorthy - A chartered accountant with lot of wits & humor in his teaching. MSN- (like Microsoft Network - he builds a good network among participants). Always willing to help with a smile - even when he says NO.

It is not that only the school and college had teachers. I had good teachers in the organisations, where I worked.

My CA Articleship

• Ramanathan - Under whom I did my CA articleship. Apart from the auditing and accounting, he exposed me to Costing for the products in the manufacturing units, for which we were the Internal Auditors.He guided me in all these areas.

Merchant Banking

• K.Gopala Krishnan (KGK) - He taught me how to appraise projects, sell financial products and price them to the clients. He always encourage those who think out of the box.He is the one who gave me full power to run a Merchant Banking division and guided me on all stock market related areas. It was my first employment.

Kothari Group

• R.Srinivasan (CEO- Kothari Biotech, currently with Rane group) - He is the one who given me the free hand to learn and taught me the basics of Corporate Finance.
• Rangesh (CGM- Kothari Biotech, (currently with Orchid Chemicals). he taught me how to handle people. He is a great HR person, I have ever come across. He is also my mentor for Public Relations
• W.R.Vasudevan (CGM-Kothari Biotech, currently with Parry). He taught me how to handle projects and monitor them. He is very patience and when he looses his cool, very difficult to face him. Nice human being.
• Sam (Thirugnanasambandham) - GM-Kothari Biotech (Heard that he has moved out from Orchid Chemicals). He taught me how to remain cool in any circumstances. He is the one who taught me all about plants and the tissue culture. Thanks to him, I learnt the technology also. Very good teacher of plants.

Southern LPG

• Raghavan (Rags), the CEO. Though it was a short stint in that company, I was exposed to the various aspects of the LPG/LNG imports and bottling. Withing a month of joining, I was good enough to make out project reports on my own to present to the Board.

Servion

• T.Nataraajan (TN). SVP & CFO in Servion and currently CEO for GRT Group Hotels. My guru and mentor at a growth stage. He is the one who taught more on the Banking relationships, getting private placements. He gave the full power to run the Finance & Secretarial functions of the group and stood behind me as a great support. I enhanced my Secretarial, Legal and Finance skill under him, which paved way for my growth. He shares his knowledge with an incident in his career. A nice human being and a guide. We always call him Thalaivar.

Scope International

• Sumanth (Head of FSSC) (currently with Infosys BPO) - You can learn how to be calm and cool, if you work with him. Nice gentleman, never jumps to conclusion. Analyse and takes a calculated risk
• Hemant Kulkarni ( Head-FSSC) Learnt how to take quick decisions and people management skills
• Romi Malhotra (MD of Scope, currently Chairman of Dominion)- You need to learn from him the tactics of Project Manangement and Leadership skills. Anyone who has worked with Romi will vouch for this.
• Venkat VI (Head of Accounting operations). You need to learn from him how to handle your team members with a smile. A perfect fit for BPO (though came to Scope from controllers background).

Though I learnt a lot in my current employment, I am not mentioning anyone in particular, as it is not correct in my part, as people may think that I am doing it to please them.

Here comes the great TEACHERS & GURUs of my life - YES...

My PARENTS. Not that they gave me the life, but also guided me and guiding me all along. If not for them, I would not have reached this level in my life. Especially my father who encouraged me to study, whatever I liked and never forced anything on me. My WIFE and Daughter - They still teach me a lot on how to be patience with a soul like me. While I learn cooking from my wife, my daughter teaches me drawing.

My Athimber, who made mathematics very simple for me and every academic year I step into the school - having learnt the maths syllabus during the summer holidays.

My friends - Rengesh (since 1980), Muthuraman (since 1985), Prakash (since 1990), Sivaram (since 1999), Raja (since 1999), Pushpavaneswaran (Since 1996), Ashok (since 2002), Gopal Ramesh (since 1994), Krishnakumar (TTE) (since 1994), Suanand (since 2002) Kolazhi Ramanan (since 2004) and my CWA group (big list), who taught me what friendship is.

My heartfelt thanks to all of my gurus and teachers on this wonderful day. If I had left some names, it is not intentional - It is memory failure (I am getting old day by day). I am sure that I will gather all the names and write more about them, when I write my biography.

Cheers,

Gopal