Kanwar Bhutani simply loves to talk. Even as he is in the process of dismantling and packing the tasteful decor at his farmhouse in the southern outskirts of Delhi, Bhutani is game for a long chat.
After all, having been in the direct selling business for almost 20 years, Bhutani knows a thing or two about chatting up housewives to help them sell goods ranging from personal care products to plastic containers.
What seems like a planeload of furniture, paintings, antiques and crystalware are headed for Orlando, Florida, where Bhutani has recently shifted to as the president of the (fast moving consumer goods) FMCG-direct selling firm Tupperware's US operations.
Bhutani's elevation, from being the managing director of the company's Indian arm for the last three years, makes the 40-year-old the latest entrant to the ever expanding list of global Indian CEOs.
The US is the home base for the $1.1 billion Tupperware, and its second largest market after Germany. "It is certainly a recognition of my work in India, but the challenges are greater in the US," says Bhutani.
His association with Tupperware since 1994 and his track record of doubling sales in India from Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore in three years, seem to have convinced Bhutani's bosses to let him do the rescue act.
In India, Bhutani was instrumental in not just increasing sales but also expanding the reach and visibility of Tupperware.
The company now has a presence in 48 cities in the country through a network of 55,000 housewives as its agents. The company has a manufacturing base in India and the sales here are greater than in China.
Bhutani left India when he was two as his father's job with the United Nations took him to Ethiopia. And then to Britain and the US where he studied computer science at the New York University.
After finishing his course, he joined the direct selling firm Avon to work on its marketing systems and product forecasting.
He shifted to Tupperware in 1994 as its director for market intelligence. "Given my maths background I was good at the number crunching job I was doing. But I felt I was better at people skills and so I decided to go out to the market," he explains.
In 1996, when Bhutani was asked to head Tupperware's floundering operations in western US, a distributor balked at him asking whether an Indian with a towel around his head could lead people.
"It made me more determined, and I silenced such people by taking my zone to the top of the sales charts for three consecutive years," he says.
Now he is back in the US, ready for new challenges.
