While choosing a career, Peshwa Acharya opted to walk the well-trodden path comprising medicine, engineering and law. “Our generation had very few career options to choose from. Typically, a child from an upper-middle-class background would either become a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer. I was no different, you could say I upheld the tradition when I decided to become an engineer,” he says.

Twenty-five years and engineering and MBA degrees later, he is working at Reliance Communications (RCOM) as senior vice-president, marketing and head of branding and marketing communication. Prior to this, he worked with Hutchison Whampoa and in the FMCG and retail segments with industry heavyweights like Procter & Gamble, Reckitt & Colman, Dabur and Reliance Retail.

Talking about his journey from FMCGs to retail to telecom, he says, “It has been an interesting and educative experience. Working on brands like Ariel, Dettol, Mortein, etc. has shown me what brand marketing in the country is really like and how one establishes power brands. At Hutch, we were involved in taking the concept of mobile telephony to the masses. The experience taught me how to introduce a new technology to customers, drive affordability and make value-added services widely available.”

“My time in the retail industry was also quite exciting. It provided me with a broad canvas of the trade industry,” he adds.

Interestingly, although vastly different in terms of structure and execution styles, Acharya feels a few parallels can be drawn among the three sectors. He says, “A strong orientation towards the customer is the biggest commonality. In all three spaces, the idea is to attract and retain customers by providing what the user wants and accordingly build one’s processes, products and services.”

So, what lessons does he bring to RCOM from these spaces? “I have picked up the basics of consumer marketing from the FMCG space, the tricks of execution from retail and how to execute projects rapidly from telecom. To sum up, our target is to make the life of our customers simple and easy. This can be achieved by ensuring that our products and services are always within the customer’s reach. Making the company every user’s preferred brand, competition notwithstanding, is also a key priority.” 

In the midst of all these activities, does he find any spare time? “Not really,” he says, “But I ensure I take 10-15 days off in the year for our annual family vacation. This year, we have Australia and New Zealand on our itinerary,” he says.