Bhupesh Bhandari: Punjabi by nature

LUNCH WITH BS: Brian Tempest's

Brian Tempest

Ranbaxy has often been likened to a Sikh "" aggressive, confident and daring. The company was set up by two Sikhs, Ranjit Singh and Gurbax Singh, in 1939 as a distributor for Shiniogi of Japan. (Hence, the name Ranbaxy.)

In 1952, Bhai Mohan Singh, a first-generation Sikh, took over the company and ran it with an iron fist for four decades. From him to Parvinder Singh and Devinder Singh Brar, the company has always had a Sikh chief executive. Until Brian Tempest took over on July 5 this year.

Brian Tempest or Brian Singh Tempest? The man from North England has become as Indian as a jalebi. To begin with, like every Indian corporate leader, he is not averse to consulting fortune-tellers.

Not one but two astrologers, one of them Brar's personal fortune-teller, had told him that he would get a new position on July 5. He is now waiting for a pundit to find an auspicious date on which to move to the company's new office in Gurgaon.

He has visited Beas, the headquarters of the Radhasoami Satsang, and watched tigers from close quarters in the country's wildlife reserves, comfortable in the thought that these tigers eat only Indian meat. "He does the best balle-balle dance in the office," one of his colleagues had told me a long time ago.

It was only appropriate that we meet at Singh Sahib at the Parkroyal. The restaurant takes its name from Maharaja Ranjit Singh, whose Khalsa were regarded the most advanced troops in all Asia. Its menu has been researched by well-known foodie Jiggs Kalra. When I reached, Tempest was already there, seated at a corner table.

On his two sides were pictures of Khalsa daggers. Behind him, across the window, was ample greenery to shut out the concrete disaster called Nehru Place. The restaurant was playing Punjabi pop "" the singer was sending out warnings to young men about the perils of love "" and Tempest looked perfectly at home sipping Indian mineral water.

"The problem is," Tempest said when I asked him about Ranbaxy's Sikh identity, "we have too much reputation for a company of our size. And this is not recent. Parvinder Singh first told me about it in 1995. Far from being aggressive, we are a little conservative in our approach compared to others."

Ranbaxy might be conservative but it is daring. About a decade ago, when it had broken up with Eli Lilly, several advisors told the company to settle for a monetary compensation and forget the American dream. Yet, the company asked Eli Lilly to give it a handful of products that had reached the end of their life cycle with the clear view that any pharmaceutical company's future lies in the US, the world's largest market.

"At that time, Eli Lilly said that we will not be able to sell in the US at all. But today, we fill about three-quarters of Eli Lilly's prescriptions. We do more prescriptions than Bayer and Roche," Tempest said passionately.

As he was going through the menu, I did a quiet recap of Tempest's journey to the driver's seat at Ranbaxy. The son of a barber from Morcamd near the Lake District in England, he had no connection with India "" none of his ancestors or relatives had served in the country during the Raj.

It was an ordinary family with no claim to fame. (His wife's uncle, George, though is a Guinness Book of World Records inductee as the world's fattest man. An Indian placement agency uses his picture regularly in its advertisements, perhaps to drive home a meaty point.)

After getting a PhD in Chemistry from Lancaster University, Tempest began his career in the pharmaceuticals industry by signing up with Beecham. He worked there for 14 years before moving on to Glaxo and from there to GD Searle.

About a decade ago, when Ranbaxy had decided to go for a rapid expansion overseas, it needed people with global experience in key overseas positions. Tempest was identified by the executive search firm of Micky Daulat Singh, a childhood friend of Parvinder Singh.

At that time, he was the worldwide commercial operations director of Fisons plc, running the company's operations in 40 countries. After a meeting with Parvinder Singh at a lakeside hotel in Geneva, Tempest was on board as regional director for Europe, CIS and Africa.

In January 2000, he was promoted as worldwide president (pharmaceuticals) and transferred from London to New Delhi. The new job came with a slot on the company's board. In December 2003, he was made joint managing director and CEO designate of Ranbaxy.

By now, we had decided what our lunch was going to be. There was tandoori prawn and sole for starters, followed by a spicy tomato soup (it was never served) and aloo gobi, bhindi ka salan and dal (Tempest preferred black over yellow) for the main course.

When Tempest's appointment as Brar's successor was announced, the company also appointed Malvinder Mohan Singh, the elder son of Parvinder Singh, as president (pharmaceuticals). As Tempest would retire in a few short years (he is 56), there was widespread speculation at that time that his appointment was a stop-gap arrangement and he was only preparing ground for Malvinder to take over in due course.

His gentle eyes unflinching, Tempest has always fielded this question with a one-line reply: "I am here to stay." But even when he retires, that won't be the end of his association with Ranbaxy. "There is an arrangement with the board that I will work in some capacity even after retirement," he said as we started our meal with papad.

A bigger problem at hand for Tempest is the spate of high-level resignations that followed Brar's exit from the company. "The turnover rate is small for a company that employs 9,000 people. And we have also been recruiting in large numbers. Our management team is stronger than what it was last year," he said. By now, the fish and prawn had arrived. The starters were light and tasted better than we expected.

Unlike most westerners, Tempest does not complain about the state of affairs in India. (The best sight of India is when your ship sets sail from the Gateway of India, ran the popular joke in British times.) He lives in a farmhouse in south Delhi with his wife Jasmine and three sons, and often drives to work himself. The Manchester United fan loves the hill stations of India, overcrowded Shimla being his favourite.

Next on his list of places to visit is Amritsar. He has taken his 80-year-old mother on a rickshaw ride in old Delhi "" her rickshaw overtook his and he could only see her white head bobbing up and down at a distance. He is full of praise for the Indian work ethic "" attendants who have wheeled out his mother of the airport in five minutes flat have never accepted baksheesh from him. And he insists that he has never come across the caste system at work.

The main course arrived while we were discussing the hill stations of India. As expected, the fare was rich and heavy, but tasty nevertheless. We asked the waiters to keep steady the flow of hot tandoori rotis.

The dal had the distinct aroma of dhabas lining the highways of north India. The conversation took a backseat as we attacked the food with vigour even as the speakers blared out a Daler Mehndi number.

Lunch over, I asked Tempest if he still kept in touch with Bhai Mohan Singh. To my surprise, he said that he was supposed to spend his entire first day as CEO with the grand old man of Ranbaxy. But a day or two before that, Avtar Mohan Singh, Bhai Mohan Singh's wife, died and the plan had to be shelved. He is now planning to meet Bhai Mohan Singh later in the month.

We had spend almost two hours in Singh Sahib. We said goodbye and Tempest was once again back in the office, running India's largest pharmaceutical company.