The biggest challenge facing telecom infrastructure companies today is energy management, observes Murali Arikara, executive director, Essential Energy India Private Limited. “With the increase in diesel prices and the pressure from the government to move away from diesel to greener alternatives, energy management is a challenge for these companies,” says Arikara.

For Essential Energy, this is, of course, an opportunity. “As an energy management service provider, this gives us a chance to expand in the telecom infrastructure market. Once established in this market, we believe that our prospects in the distributed generation market will be good, given the acute shortage of energy,” he says.

Arikara has over 20 years of work experience and has held leadership roles in various energy management and alternative energy technology companies. He has expertise in corporate strategy, technology management and acquisition, business development, product development, marketing and power systems engineering.

During the course of his career, he founded Jadoo Power Systems and served as its chief executive officer. Subsequently, he moved to Intelligent Energy where he was vice-president and head of its US operations. He then shifted to India as general manager and director of Intelligent Energy India, and was responsible for setting up its business in the country.

Later, he joined Essential Energy, where his responsibilities include business and solutions development. “My role is to define the vision for the business along with the rest of the leadership team and set the central ideas and thoughts regarding company strategies.” He believes in guiding and encouraging his team to make timely decisions. “I find that people have the intelligence and ability to analyse situations and make the right decisions. Sometimes they are not confident of the decisions they make and fail to take a timely call on an issue,” he says.

He considers his current stint as the most satisfying so far. “The opportunity to establish the company’s office in India and expand it over the last few years is perhaps my most memorable assignment. It gave me the chance to come back and work in one of the most exciting markets in the world and to build a team that I would rate as one of the best I’ve worked with,” he says.

On the personal front, Arikara enjoys reading, writing (when he finds the time), travelling and spending time with family and friends.