One of the major highlights of Mehul Kapadia’s rather eventful career has been the multi-year technology service and marketing agreement signed earlier this year by Tata Communications with the Formula 1 management. As VP, strategic alliances and sponsorships at Tata Communications, Kapadia headed the F1 initiative for the company. Delivering successfully on this was a crucial challenge for him.
“F1 is clearly a sophisticated and demanding sport. It requires fast and secure connectivity apart from reliable web hosting, as even a split second of downtime can have a significant impact. Ensuring that we met, and exceeded, expectations was both a challenge and an opportunity,” he says.
For Kapadia, it has been a long association with the Tata Group and with Tata Communications in particular. The other positions that he has held in the company have been head of marketing and strategy for the small and medium enterprise business in India and head of sales and marketing for the retail business. He has also served on the board of directors of the Wireless Broadband Alliance.
Aside from the F1 experience, a memorable assignment for Kapadia was setting up the retail business unit following the Tatas’ acquisition of the government-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL). “I was among the first 10-15 Tata employees to start working with VSNL. My mandate was to help set up the retail business unit. The assignment was transformational in approach and I still cherish the joy of creating something new.”
Among new technologies, Kapadia believes that cloud computing, mobile broadband and proliferation of video collaboration will be the three likely trends to impact the company’s business going forward. To meet the challenges posed by the changing business environment, Tata Communications has made heavy investments and connected telepresence rooms for the organisation and its partners on its network. About 73 per cent of the telepresence end points are connected to the Tata Communications network.
Kapadia is an engineer by qualification and has specialised in electronics and telecommunications. He also has an MBA in marketing. Besides work, the other thing that gets him talking is books. “I used to be a bookworm. I was a huge fan of Robert Ludlum and his style of writing. My favourite book is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.” Kapadia, who belongs to Mumbai, enjoys Bollywood movies though, he says, “it is animation movies that keep me really interested”.
His family comprises his wife and a daughter, who he says have motivated him to deal with every career challenge.