Business Standard

3 steps ahead of competition

Meet Your Entrepreneur

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P V Vasanta Kumar Hyderabad
 Unlike a few years ago, she can not take them along with her because the children, aged at seven-and-half-a-years and six years respectively, are busy with their school now.

 As head of technical operations at Virtusa, Tushara has to be present in Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Hyderabad often, where the company's global delivery centers are located.

 In addition to this, she has to shuttle among various cities in US as part of their marketing exercise.

 Does she miss her children because of her work? No, not much, as the 36-year-old successful woman entrepreneur plans everything in advance including the kids' diet, play dates etc.

 Wherever she is, she keeps calling them over video phone, asks them how their day was and even reads them their bed time stories.

 Born in Sri Lanka, Tushara moved to US along with husband Kris Canekeratne to co-found their IT venture eRunway (now rechristened Virtusa) in 1996. Kris was her schoolmate-sweetheart and both hail from very well-to-do families.

 In fact there is no need for Tushara to work that hard, but the entrepreneurial zeal keeps her moving.

 The wife and husband combination worked so well that within seven years of setting up the company, Virtusa grew to be 1800-strong enterprise, with 1,000 of them in Hyderabad, 600 in Sri Lanka and the rest in the US.

 The company received a whopping $ 36 million funding support in two rounds from leading venture capitalists like Charles River Ventures and JAFCO Ventures. The venture investors too are a happy lot because the company is nearing a revenue size of $ 100 million.

 The company is now planning to set up its second development center in the country in Chennai. It is also planning to ramp up its workforce by more than double to 4,000 by the next year-end.

 Most interestingly, the company grew on an average by more than 50 per cent per annum even when there was a pall of gloom over the IT sector in the last few years.

 What contributes to the duo's success while other companies are struggling to survive: Always keeping three steps ahead of competition in terms of vision, efficiency and processes, Tushara says.

 Tushara holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science and mathematics from Loughborough University (UK).

 As the executive vice-president (technical operations), she has worldwide responsibility for managing Virtusa's global delivery, processes, and knowledge management. Prior to Virtusa, she was director of Internet Engineering at INSCI Corporation.

 Tushara hates to show off opulence. She likes simple dress and ornaments. When her interior designer at the Hyderabad center was laying a plush carpet in her cabin and decorating it well, she objected to it and asked him to design it the same way as others'.

 Does it make any difference because she is a woman? No, is her firm reply. If you treat people the way they are to be treated, you will get what you want from them, she says from her experience.

 She has a passion for interior design, gardening, cooking (she is a dessert specialist), and playing rummy with her children.

 

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First Published: Nov 28 2003 | 12:00 AM IST

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