Nandan S. Agrawaal – Managing Director – NPL BlueSky Automotive
The key to Nandan Agrawaal’s professional good books is work with one’s heart and mind combined to get the best possible results for the company. The next two pre-requisites are to work with passion and integrity. Sarada Vishnubhatla finds out what makes him tick in a heart-to-heart.
This 34-year-old Mumbai-ite knows that all work and no play will burn him out in the long run. His high energy is tempered by his need to achieve ‘balance’ in work and life because he believes that in ‘balance’ lies the possible cure for all the excesses in life. And he does that by constantly working towards achieving the perfect merger between his heart and the brain. He is the ultimate believer in being logical for according to him, there is no downside to it.
Nandan S. Agrawaal, Managing Director – NPL BlueSky Automotive, had a ‘solid and grounded’ upbringing while growing up as the eldest of three children in his family. Nandan grew up watching his father – a first-generation entrepreneur – establish the family business of lubricants in 1992 and work hard to develop it. Getting into the family business was a given for Nandan who finished his Chemical Engineering from the University of Mumbai in 2007 and MBA from S P Jain School of Global Management, Mumbai, in 2011.
“My father is an absolute workaholic and he inspires me even today by working far longer hours than I do,” he says laughingly and continues, “I am forever amazed that though my father was a commerce graduate and had no science background, yet he established multiple lubricant factories.”
Nandan admires his father for the fact that he took the company to the next level despite facing some tough financial times. “Our family never came to know the crunch times. I would like to grow into his shoes in that regard. He is a visionary I would say. One instance is when he decided to set up India’s first AdBlue plant through a joint venture in 2010, even though the demand for it was still nascent at that time in India. So, right after when the BS 4 emissions came into effect, we could rope in major OEMs and that is why today, we have about 65% market share in AdBlue segment,” he shares.
His undying belief is that he is one of the employees at NPL. He follows it up with an ‘open door-arms-and-heart’ policy to identify those who work whole-heartedly in a bid to add to the growth of the company. The ‘extreme passion’ towards his work allows him to appreciate the same in those around him.
A defining moment helped him realize that he is in it for the long run and it is not a ‘100-meter sprint’. He lauds his friend who once said this and made him realize. And from then onwards, working towards sustainable solutions has become his focal point. Add to that, now he remembers to switch off too in his personal time… well at least “as far as possible,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.
He believes that only sustainable actions on his part will help his company achieve Rs. 1,000 crores by March 2020 and double it in the next two years. And the magic for him lies in never going out of ‘balance’.