Lakshmi Narayanan takes over as President of TiE Chennai

Sets agenda of bringing diverse sector companies into TiE Chennai and facilitating free flow of information

Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman of Cognizant Technology Solutions and former Chairman of NASSCOM, took reins of TiE Chennai as its President. TiE (acronym for The IndUS Entrepreneurs) was founded in 1992 in the Silicon Valley to foster entrepreneurship. Today, TiE has 55 chapters spread across 13 countries with 57,000 members. TiE Chennai is one of the globally active members with a membership of more than 350 members and 90 charter members.

To mark the transition, the outgoing President Mr. R. Ramraj, MD, Sequoia Capital, handed over the TiE charter to Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan as a symbolic gesture. Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan said he was delighted to take up this new role as TiE Chennai has seen significant developments over the years. He envisioned a great economic growth for the country if 10 companies out of the companies starting now would become billion dollar businesses in ten years, citing examples of mobile companies, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Hero Honda that have gone on to become multibillion dollar businesses starting 10 years ago. As entrepreneurial spirit is high in Chennai, he said if four or five companies go on to become $100 million businesses in 10 years, TiE Chennai would be happy about it.

The new President of TiE felt that globally there is free flow of capital and talent but no free flow of information. He said he would facilitate free flow of information in TiE Chennai through networking meetings. He said, "as more room for innovation exists in sectors such as electronic manufacturing, renewable energy, and education, it would be better if TiE Chennai membership is broad-based including these companies." The technology-centric image of TiE Chennai should be changed to include a broader set of companies from diverse sectors as coming together of diverse companies would foster innovation, according to Mr. Narayanan.

The other agenda that Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan set in his tenure is driving membership to include more charter members, invite eminent personalities from different sectors to become charter members, and to encourage entrepreneurs from fields other than IT. Answering a question, he said that mentors are needed for young entrepreneurs to rightly spend their funds raised from venture capitalists or investors. Student entrepreneurship has great potential in the view of Mr. Narayanan as he felt the success rate of young people is higher.

Earlier, the outgoing President, Mr. Ramraj, in his remarks, listed the achievements of TiE Chennai and said its focus was on networking, education, and mentoring. Organizing talks by successful entrepreneurs to help young entrepreneurs and creating an ecosystem to facilitate entrepreneurship through business plan competitions in partnership with LIBA, and fostering partnerships with IIT-M business school and VIT were some of the activities undertaken by TiE Chennai. Setting up Chennai Angels to provide seed funding for promising ideas was another initiative aimed at helping entrepreneurs. He lamented that parents don't encourage their children to become entrepreneurs, as Kanwal Reiki (one of the founders of TiE) told TiE Chennai audience recently.

Chennai Angels, the seed fund set up by charter members of TiE Chennai, has invested to the tune of Rs. 5 crore in 5 to 7 business ideas in 2 years and has been successful in making two successful exits.

(Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy, chief evangelist, reports from Chennai)