My Date with the CEO !

It was by far one of the biggest achievements for me in my short career so far. On Saturday 3rd September 2005, I had the opportunity and the privilege to meet the people in the top most rung of the corporate ladder.

When I got the news that the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of my organization, Tata Consultancy Services, Mr. S. Ramadorai was going to visit my office and my department (Advanced Technology Center, ATC) in particular, I was very excited. My team was informed by my PL that our project has 30 minutes with the CEO and we should make the best use of it. A CEO does not go around checking on every project in his company, especially if its as big as mine. So naturally we were upbeat.

A couple of days after the news was delivered, I called for a team meet and discussed the plans with my team. I did not want to assume anything for the big day, I wanted clarifications from my project seniors about all aspects of the presentation that we were planning for Mr. Ramadorai.

We started our work the next day, preparing a complete PC to showcase our work in Indian Language Computing (my project). While we were working on that, we also had a discussion with our PL. That was when the important question came up, "Who is going to take the presentation?" I volunteered immediately; I was confident of doing it and the pressure did not affect me too much, well, at least not at that time anyway!

With that I started my preparation for the presentation cum demo. Starting a few days before the big day, I was giving a demo-presentation every day to everyone from a senior associate at ATC, my PL to the Executive Vice President, who heads my department ATC.

My preparation was in full gear, they also gave me a laptop (I will have to return it today :-( ) to prepare for the presentation. I had already given about two informal and one semi-formal demo-presentation before the big day, all this only increased my confidence level.

D-Day
Reached office early... well my PL was already there before me but 8.20am read early in my watch. While exchanging greetings and pleasantries with him, he told me that I will have to give another presentation before the actual one. This time it was to an Executive Vice President for Bombay who will be with the CEO.

I asked my team mate to start up the laptop and set it up, and while he was doing that I thought I might practice my presentation one last time but this time all alone. So I went into the men's room, stood in front of the giant mirror and began my speech a la "Mudalvan" (the movie) style.

The presentation with the EVP from Bombay stretched for a longish duration. Mostly because he was examing every inch of it and assessing every possible business potential in it. When that was over my PL and the whole team just relaxed ourselves with some coffee and a bit of humor.

The time I begin my presentation, 12 noon, was fast approaching. Only then I realized I had not had a proper break-fast. The trouble with me is that when I become hungry my ears get blocked and it would be really irritating for me, especially if I want to listen or speak to some one else. I had only 15 minutes left, ran hurriedly to the nearest snack bar only to find nothing was available, not even biscuits. Settled for a cup of coffee, which did not solve anything; but something was better than nothing.

The Presentation

Inside, the conference room was not very big. I was big enough to seat a dozen people (a lot more if the expensive furniture are removed). It had a huge V-shaped table with a screen a few feet from the edge of the "V". After setting up laptop, we were ready to go. My PL started off first with a short "Impress" (Powerpoint) presentation. His whole 10-minute presentation was split equally into two parts one before my demo-presentation and the other after. He completed the first part and enter Khader Abbeb.

The audience, apart from a three of my team members, consisted of the CEO and MD, Mr. Ramadorai and seven Executive Vice Presidents!!! Whew... This is the top-most, decision making and highly powerful people in TCS.

My presentation went great... It was fabul-o-awesome. During most of the presentation, I was looking directly at the CEO. All I can say is he is a careful listener. There were a few questions from the EVPs present and the whole presentation was quite interactive.

The whole presentation (my PL's and mine) finished on time. Checked my watch which showed the smaller hand past 12 and the longer one exactly vertical and pointing downwards. These guys value every minute and we did not want to piss them off.

From the body language of the audience, I can emphatically say that they were very impressed. And surely they were, as most of the EVPs came up to my team and said that the presentation was really good. One of the EVPs actually came to me and said "Your presentation was really good". I replied with a warm "Thank you, sir" and a smile but inside I was jumping around and pumping fists much like Brett Lee... "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!"

Coming out the conference room, team members and my PL said that my presentation was perfect and had a good flow. My PL then invited the whole team for lunch and we left office, all 6 of us including my PL, cramped into a small car to taste some special Hyderbadi Biriyani.

I was still tasting something else... "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!"