Rajaram is an accomplished Healthcare Business Leader with 23 years of Cross-Functional Experience in Global Markets. His career journey from Medical Rep to a CEO has seen him traverse through a range of building and sustainably growing businesses across India, Africa and developed markets like the US.
Recently (in September, 2021), he was awarded the Africa Business Leader of the Year Award at the 20th edition of the Africa Leadership Awards organized by the CMO Global Group. His astute leadership during the first lockdown and resultant success has been featured in ‘The Great Lockdown’, a book published by Wiley and launched on Amazon, US in November 2021. He has multiple publications to his credit, including articles and features in the CIO Review and European Biopharmaceutical Review.
He is passionate about mentoring young talent and shaping up future leaders so feel free to connect with him and seek his guidance. He is currently based in Kampala, Uganda and is looking to transition back to India in few months after completing his current assignment.
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM to this role?
A. It has been a very exciting and eventful journey so far with lots of learning from various roles across organisations, business models. I have been very fortunate to work with some wonderful people while building and leading teams and learning from them all, as I did from some great leaders that I had the privilege of working for.
I started in a GIS Sales role in a tech company from campus. In a short while I was convinced that my calling is healthcare. So, when I had the opportunity to come back to healthcare, with Frost & Sullivan, an MNC consulting firm, I took it with both hands. From there I got back to the pharma industry with Torrent, an Indian Pharma Major and was part of the team which charted their entry into the US Market. After a couple of other assignments, I had the opportunity to be part of the leadership team of Abbott, India’s largest Healthcare MNC (revenues of ~$1.5 Billion in India and $43 Billion globally) and to my current role of a CEO of the largest Healthcare firm (Abacus Pharma) in East Africa.
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. Building/growing businesses:
-Grew from Medical Rep to CEO of mid-sized healthcare company rising through a range of commercial & corporate functions
-Set up first ever vaccines business of Abbott anywhere in the world; the business grew to be the fourth largest vaccines business in India in under 3 years
-Designed and set up the first ever commercial excellence function in Abbott across Asia-Pacific and Africa. It is now a standard leadership role
-Turned around & scaled up the medical nutrition business of Abbott 2.4X in two years and established its leadership in the category
-Charted & project managed US entry of Torrent Pharma; revenues of $45 M in 5 years & $200 M plus in 2020-21
-Invited to contribute to the book ‘The Great Lockdown’ published by Wiley and launched in November, 2021 on Amazon in the US. We are featured for the way we navigated the pandemic and delivered record results during the first lockdown. Other companies featured in the book include SAP, Terumo, Fonterra etc.
Talent Development:
-Built high performing teams fostering an inclusive & entrepreneurial culture; inducted/developed diverse talent who have grown to functional heads, country heads, BU Heads and more; groomed direct reports for succession in most assignments
-Mentored young talent to successfully enroll into Harvard Business School, Kellogg School of Business, Columbia University and more
Q. What is the most satisfying part of your current role?
A. Providing access to quality healthcare products to 200 million East African population and thereby saving lives and improving the quality of healthcare is immensely satisfying and keeps me motivated every day.
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. Absolutely. IIFM helps one appreciate the fact that we are part of a larger society and ecosystem. Responsibility, sustainability, empathy are some traits, which an IIFM’ite gets to imbibe earlier than many others.
Q. Who (or what) are the biggest influences or drivers in your careers? What would be your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates who are looking to choose similar sectors/roles?
A. My father is someone that I have always looked up to and my love for healthcare, effective communication, and tireless efforts in pursuit of a goal have been inspired by him. Apart from him, there are some teachers, senior colleagues and customers who have been very inspiring too. Every IIFMIGHT story on Sunday, detailing the journeys and accomplishments of IIFM alumni, is very inspiring too. My advice to IIFM graduates is to pursue their passion. Like Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
Q. What are your favorite memories during your IIFM days?
A. Quite a few. It was an adventure and fun all through. The field work in Odisha, the two Organisational Trainings (now called Summer Internship and Project Work), all the work which went into the placement brochure as OT & Placement Committee member and of course, playing Master of Ceremonies for the convocation in 1999 are some great memories. The bonfires near sunset point, the parties in bamboosa, the ‘out-of-syllabus’ trip to Dhelawari were great fun too…if only we had a time machine to go back in time and relive them…
Q. In hindsight, what was the biggest contribution (courses, faculty, library, friends, alumni.. Anything else!!) or take away from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. Apart from the earlier mentioned traits that IIFM inculcates, the biggest contributions of IIFM include taking away the fear of unknown and fostering a close-knit community. Let me elaborate: even after the first few days of joining IIFM, I did not have a clue of what is silviculture or forestry operations and management, some of the courses, which were integral part of the syllabus. Apart from some great faculty who taught us these subjects, we had the benefit of learning from our SAARC classmates, who are trained practitioners of forestry. Similarly, as a science graduate, I was all at sea with accountancy. I somehow tided over the course with help & guidance from my batchmate Nikhil. Likewise, in our batch, we had at least one person who was good at the subject and we learnt from each other, as much as from the faculties and the various elements of pedagogy.
The most important contribution of IIFM in my life, however, is a good reference check (typical of arranged marriages at that time) from an IIFM Prof. when I was getting married. My father-in-law is Prof. Krishna Kumar’s first cousin. In retrospect, it was good to do well in his first course, communication. Neeraja and I have been married for almost 19 years now and I can say I couldn’t have asked for anything better (do think the feeling is mutual)!!
Q. The best buddies / seniors /faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share?
A. It is such a long list and no matter what it won’t be able to do justice to all (the inadvertent errors of omission will be a given). Suffice it to say, I am blessed to have great seniors (Subrata, Sandeep, Sashi, late Anjan, Alice, Bharati di, Subbu, Shakeb, BG da, Seema di), wonderful batchmates (Kaustuv, Nitin, Nikhil, Radhika, Soumik, Swapnil, Dipak, Avinash, Sachin, Rajini Prasad, Ashish Sinha, Ashish Agrawal, Sonali, James, Kultar, Sonia, Nishantha, Kumara, Chandra, Bittu Babu) and committed faculty members (Dr. Rathore, Prof. JK Das, Prof. Amitabh P, Dr. Ravi Sundar, Prof. Pethiya, Prof. Krishna Kumar, Dr. Madhu Verma, Prof. Biswas, Prof. D N Pandey, Prof. Majumdar,) There were also some wonderful non-teaching staff who were so supportive like Mr. Srinivasan in the PFM cell, folks in the hostel building, some of the mess staff and so on.
When I look back, I feel I am blessed to have been taught by fabulous faculty like Dr. C.S. Rathore and other great teachers. Even after 22 years of passing out of IIFM, many of my batchmates are in touch and we do catch up over zoom and meet up whenever we are in the same city. We may be out of IIFM but, IIFM is not out of our system and will never be…
Q. As an alumni, what’s your advice to freshers or those are joining IIFM to get best out of the 2 years there?
A. Like I said in our farewell at the IIFM Mess, ‘education away from home is an education in itself’. Enjoy the present, have an open mind, learn from every interaction, follow your passion and set your own trend.
Q. What is your typical day at the office? (We want to know what your day job looks like)
A. After a certain stage in corporate life, there is no typical day or routine, honestly. It may sound like meetings, more meetings, emails and calls all the time. But largely, I am either solving problems, or setting vision/strategy, challenging & supporting/motivating my teams, meeting key customers to gain insights, building the corporate brand with external stakeholders (could be the government or potential partner), evaluating opportunities for growth etc. Of course, there are set calendar events like board meetings, team reviews etc. but, that are part of the larger picture.
Q. And how about weekends, Hobbies, Family and anything else you want to add
A. Used to read a lot (fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, literally anything under the sun) though of late, it has come down drastically. Used to be an avid quizzer and debater. I do listen to some good podcasts and music. As a family we love to travel but, dampened by the pandemic. We try do short outings, as much as possible.
Q. IIFM is driven by alumni’s passion and commitments towards its goal. How would you like to contribute to IIFM or IIFM alumni, students?
A. Happy to mentor students. Other than that, I am available to contribute in any of my areas of expertise so feel free to connect.
Q. What do you think is different at IIFM now vs when you studied there? What do you think is a positive change and what is not?
A. It has been a long time now (22 years since I attained an alumnus status). So, I am sure a lot has changed, and I may not even be aware of all the changes. I could visit the campus only twice after passing out in 2000; once in 2006 for our convocation (I came with my family and stayed in the same room as I did in my first year; it was so nostalgic) and second time in 2012 when I was invited for a guest lecture. I have been in touch with my batchmates, some of my seniors and a couple of faculty members. Therefore, not fully qualified to comment meaningfully on the changes.
However, I must say that I am very impressed with the quality of social media posts that I get to see, especially LinkedIn, which I regularly visit. Some of the content that I see is absolute professional standards. This is a testament to the capabilities of the modern day IIFM’ites. Also, I am impressed with the quality of interaction I have had with some of the recent batches/current batch students who reached out to me. They seem to be knowledgeable about current trends and very mature in their approach. Future looks very bright.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. In case they have not been featured, yet:
Sandeep Sengupta (PFM Class of 1999)
Subrata Bose (PFM Class of 1999)
Nikhil Mathur (PFM Class of 2000)
Kultar Singh (PFM Class of 2000) Co-founder Sambodhi
Swapnil Shekhar (PFM Class of 2000) Co-founder Sambodhi
Sashidhar (PFM Class of 1999)
Sameer (PFM Class of 2001)
Binu Koshy (PFM Class of 2001)