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Amit Agrawal was raised in New York City by his immigrant parents and he went to school at Rutgers. Though his original ambition was to study music, he ended up majoring in Computer Science. Anjan discovered Amit at Cambridge as a "hotshot" technical architect who fitted in to what we called "MindTree Material".
I met him over lunch in New Jersey and expected that I would have to do a sell job to get Amit to take the plunge. In yet another happy move, life presented Amit to us on a silver platter. No questions, no issues. Amit was subsequently chosen as "MindTree Mind of the Year" in 2001 - the highest internal recognition that a person can aim to achieve at MindTree.

Then came Erik Mann. Schooled at Princeton, flying cross country gliders at US National Championships, Erik gained great experience at Health Management Systems and then at Cambridge Technology Partners. He designed eExpress, our methodology for e-Business implementation, led our delivery team in Avis and then set up our healthcare vertical in 2003.

Scott Staples brought in Joseph King as vice president of marketing. Joe and Scott had worked together in Cap Gemini and at Cambridge, and Joe got the marketing act off the ground pretty quickly, setting up our direct marketing efforts, putting in place relationships and eventually, taking on additional responsibility for our People Function in the U.S. as well.

One position that remained open for a long time was head of finance. Ashok saw dozens of candidates and it was becoming increasingly difficult to convince him on anyone. He was very clear about wanting to take a young person whom he could personally groom for the job. Additionally, the incumbent had to be able to take the white heat of Ashok’s proximity day in and day out.

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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