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Krishna Kumar was the Chief Executive of Wipro's Electronic Commerce Division. Son of a railway doctor, KK as we call him, did his engineering at Guindy - followed by a management degree from Xavier's, Jamshedpur. KK had an illustrious career behind him.
Though his first job was at ORG, his real career spanned 18 years in Wipro. He grew to become the Head of Northern Region at Wipro Infotech before becoming the Chief Marketing Officer of the organization. Then came the dramatic shift. He agreed to President Ashok Soota's idea to take over and revamp the Human Resources function. The company critically depended on it as it had aggressive growth plan as a software services exporter.

When KK was Group VP for Human Resources, I was the Chief Executive of Wipro's Global R&D. As a line business head, I was KK's internal customer and we often worked issues together. There was a strong bond developing between the two of us, though we met socially only once in the ten years I spent in Wipro. Whenever I used to size up people, my highest rated person was typically one who would fill two conditions: someone I would love to work for and some one I would call first, if I ever got into my own business. KK met both criteria. So, one day in June 1998, I called KK and invited him to lunch. 17^th June, we agreed to meet. It turned out to be a day that changed our lives, and many other lives.

At the empty Karavali Restaurant (it was not yet time for the afternoon crowd), KK and I filled each other with the details of our life goals. We did not see ourselves as climbing our respective corporate ladders. We agreed that there was space to create an outstanding service based solution focused company, we agreed that the key is to create significant shared wealth, we agreed that the biggest kick in life is to make extra-ordinary differences in the lives of ordinary people and we agreed that we must share our success with the larger society in which we are all born.

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Subroto Bagchi is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for MindTree Consulting (P) Ltd. The "Making of the MindTree" is told in the first person by Subroto Bagchi. In condensed form, it was published by Business World, filmed by InfiniTV, and aired on CNBC, IT Hour. Websites: www.mindtree.com & www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi