Murthy Chaganti is a marketing and finance professional with over 18 years of experience across the telecom, engineering and consumer durable industries. In the past, he has worked with companies like Larsen & Toubro, Vodafone India, Motorola and Colgate Palmolive. Currently, he is the circle business head of Aircel Chennai and is responsible for its top line and bottom line.

Talking about business opportunities and challenges in the circle, he says, “Apart from brand-conscious and loyal consumers, the Chennai circle also has high telecom penetration.” With growing competition, managing profitability amidst rising costs is a key concern for the industry as a whole. “The challenge is in making consumers use higher volumes of voice and data. Increased usage would, in turn, increase average revenue per user,” he says.

In this scenario, service providers, including Aircel, are looking to leverage the emerging data opportunity. With the growing adoption of smartphones, there is a significant shift in user behaviour towards the consumption of mobility services, Chaganti observes. A large number of users are opting for communication through email and applications such as WhatsApp.

Chaganti identifies two assignments as particularly memorable: his association with Colgate Palmolive and Aircel. At Colgate Palmolive, he learnt the basics of marketing and distribution, which benefited him in the later years of his career. At Aircel, being one of the first employees of the Andhra Pradesh circle, he gained valuable experience rolling out the network, determining the pricing strategy and recruiting manpower.

For Chaganti, success comes from being honest to one’s work. He believes that people rally behind a leader if he “walks the talk”. He says, “Before I ask someone to do something, it is important for me to do the same thing and set an example.” Chaganti counts his strong analytical skills as his biggest strength. His diverse work experience across various industries gives him a much-needed perspective that helps him find solutions in complex situations.

Chaganti spends his spare time with his family. He enjoys listening to music and watching movies. An inveterate Aamir Khan fan, Lagaan is his all-time favourite movie. He also loves travelling and says, “I wish I could one day climb Mount Everest and journey through the Amazon rainforest.”