From managing India’s largest IT services firm to completing marathons, it’s all in a day’s work for N Chandrasekaran. Shivani Shinde meets the man for whom running is ‘pure joy’
Not many people start running when they are in their 40s, and those who do, don’t quite aim to become marathon runners. But for 47-year-old N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest IT services firm, this was yet another goal that had to be achieved and bettered.
Chandrasekaran clearly believes in raising the bar constantly. A look at the second quarter results which the company announced recently — TCS reported a 32 per cent jump in net profit — and it’s evident that he applies this rule in business as well.
Despite a busy schedule and the responsibility of running a $6.4 billion firm, Chandrasekaran — or Chandra as he’s fondly called by his colleagues — hits the tracks regularly for his weekly quota of training and running. His current target is to run at least 40 km per week. “I don’t believe that someone is too busy to find time to pursue what he or she likes to do,” he says.
Since he first participated in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in 2008, Chandrasekaran has completed full marathons at New York, Stockholm, Prague, and Vienna — plus the 42-km Chicago Marathon. But when he started running, completing or participating in a marathon was not the aim. “I decided to run for health reasons. My family has a history of diabetics,” he explains. “The first day I must have managed to barely cross the street across my building,” he recalls. But that didn’t discourage him. Instead, he continued to run across the seafront near his Worli residence in Mumbai. “Someone told me, it’s 4-km long. I started to run the stretch regularly and built on it. It was not easy but I managed it,” says Chandrasekaran who continued to run every day for almost a year.
It was on one of his trips to Lonavala in 2007 that he realised his potential as a runner, when he jogged for a good two hours. “It came as a surprise to me. I asked a friend and a colleague if I was fit enough to participate in the half-marathon in Mumbai. And he said ‘You are prepared to run the full marathon’,” says Chandrasekaran.
But the first marathon run in 2008 was not easy. “It was an amateurish attempt,” he recalls, “After the initial 20 km, my shoulders started to pain, and then the thighs started to hurt.” This time, too, he didn’t give up and completed the marathon. “I realised that this was a serious task and needed to be planned.
Now I know what to work on and all the other details,” says Chandrasekaran.
Running as a form of exercise, he says, was a random choice. “I am not an athlete and no one in my family is either. It was just something that came to my mind and I went for it,” he says. Perhaps his interest in trekking is what led him to run. Chandrasekaran’s wife Lalitha is an avid trekker and the family has climbed up most of the Sahyadri ranges. “Our holiday involves a lot of hard work,” says Chandrasekaran who recently went for a trek in the Himalayas with his wife and son Pranav.
Running, says Chandrasekaran, has brought some positive changes in his personality as well. “I was always focused and perseverant. But now I am much calmer and observant too. And I think I’ve also become a good listener. Running gives you the time to think. You’re on your own and there is enough time to think things through,” he explains.
When he’s in Mumbai, Chandrasekaran coaches every morning with his two trainers. The training includes cardio and stretches for at least 15 to 20 minutes and running for almost two hours. “I don’t like indoor gyms, so we try and work outdoors as much as possible,” he says. The target is to run at least 40 km every week. “This is the minimum,” he says.
His enthusiasm has rubbed on to some of his colleagues at TCS as well. “I have asked my trainers to make a health plan for some of my colleagues,” says Chandrasekaran who plans to keep running.
“For me, running is pure joy,” he says. “I am not competing. I am just completing the marathon.”
