C.N.Madhusudan The Dynamic Founder and CEO of VectorSpan Inc. by Mahadev Desai

The high profile and highly regarded Madhu has consulted, trained and mentored leadership teams of companies from various industries. He is an accomplished dealmaker with over 25 years experience in setting up, acquiring and operating businesses in Europe, India and the United States. His core competencies include strategic analysis, business evaluation, and complex cross-border negotiations.

Madhu was born in Bangalore, India and earned his degrees at St.Joseph’s College, Bangalore and the highly reputed Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His professional education includes Business Evaluation at the Harvard Business School.

His first stint was in Corporate Planning with Tube Investments in Chennai. In this role, he was responsible for production planning in the steel sheets and tubes factories. The steel industry was dominated by public sector SAIL and didn’t excite him enough. So he moved to the IT industry and joined the newly launched NIIT.

At NIIT, Madhu honed his business skills. As an early member of the team that built NIIT in India, he held key roles including setting up NIIT’s Bangalore operations, turned around its Mumbai (Bombay) operations, and established the Human Resources, IS and Corporate Planning functions – key platforms that would support NIIT’s explosive growth.

In 1991, he relocated to the United States to build NIIT’s first overseas presence for its software, training, and knowledge process outsourcing businesses. At that time, the writing on the wall for companies like NIIT was “Export or Perish.” Access to foreign exchange was highly regulated and limited. A shoe-string budget to operate overseas was a luxury. Undaunted by the challenges of a new market, the recession in the US, and limited funds, Madhu started an entrepreneurial one-person branch operation. He established and managed NIIT’s US operations as President and COO. Under his leadership, NIIT USA became NIIT’s largest overseas operation and was nominated twice for the Atlanta International Business Award for outstanding leadership and role in the growth of Atlanta as an international business center.

Around the mid-nineties, with liberalization and economic reforms, the Indian economy began to transform. Indian corporations were able to retain more of their US earnings and invest in their growth. Many Indian companies, including NIIT, came out of the post-Y2K global recession with relatively healthy balance sheets. “With significant business growth, the key question was how to keep the growth engine going,” Madhu said. The answer lay in mergers and acquisitions.

Madhu set up NIIT Ventures to manage NIIT’s investments and led a series of strategic acquisitions in the e-learning and software services space. He led acquisitions of leading players like CognitiveArts, and deep domain expertise players like DEI and ROOM Solutions that accelerated NIIT’s growth and significantly enhanced the value of its offerings to its customer base.
 

with wife Radhika and daughter Mallika

In early 2008, Madhu started a new venture called VectorSpan Inc., striking out on his own, using his extensive experience with cross border operations and mergers and acquisitions to aid companies looking to grow through “inorganic means.” Madhu specializes in assisting companies that have nowhere to grow but outward, particularly those looking to integrate with other companies across borders. This is relevant in a global environment where economies have become more interdependent and international transactions have become a viable option for more companies who have the cash to invest.

His timing is perfect. From a country choked by a bloated bureaucracy and the ‘License Raj,’ and glossed over as a low priority market for US corporations, India has transformed into a major market opportunity. India today boasts of companies that not only attract global suitors but have begun acquiring reputed American and European companies on a large scale. Indian companies have emerged in their own right as major players in the global economic scene, their ambitions fueled by their financial position, their confidence, their experience and the arbitrage of cross border synergies, costs and market multiples. Acquisitions have now become a vital engine of their global growth strategy.

Madhu points out that business mergers and acquisitions are a two-way street. Companies acquire to get instant access to markets, customers, brands, production and distribution networks, domain and local market knowledge, intellectual property and technology. In addition are benefits like top-line growth, new products and capabilities, leverage to address new markets, skilled resources and economies of scale.

He cited a few examples of acquisitions by Indian companies. Tata Steel-Corus; Tata Coffee-Eight o’clock Coffee; Hindalco-Novelis; Videocon-Daewoo, Reliance-GAPCO; and Dr.Reddy’s –Betapharm. The market is now abuzz with Tata Motors acquiring Ford’s Jaguar and Land Rover brands. On the other side, global companies are acquiring Indian companies to either get a foothold or to strengthen their India presence and leverage. IBM-Daksh; Oracle-i-flex; Holcim-Gujarat Ambuja Cements and Daiichi Sankyo-Ranbaxy are cases in point.

While these transactions can be profitable in the long run, such agreements are complicated and pose significant risks for companies that don’t have a grip on the new market or new business or new teams they’re engaging with. Cultural challenges, labor issues and market behaviors could derail what initially looks like a promising transaction and that is where Madhu’s Indian heritage and diverse business background puts him in an ideal position as a bridge between US, European and Indian companies seeking to do deals and integrate across borders. With his base in the Atlanta, he is in a prime position to take advantage of growing U.S. ties with India as well as Indian companies’ widening appetite to purchase companies throughout the globe.

Madhu is a TIE mentor and past Chairman of the Board of the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (GIACC). He is a sought after speaker. He has addressed audiences on technology, technology education, Mergers and Acquisitions, outsourcing, at events of the World Bank, IFC, IMF, Institute for International Research,World Education Market, Council for Entrepreneurial Development, Georgia Tech, Emory University, Columbia Business School, Ross School of Business, IIT Mumbai, the Society of International Business Fellows, and UNESCO.

Madhu received the 2007 “Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award”, America’s most prestigious Asian American business award program for innovation, leadership and vision in business. As a philatelist specializing in the Second World War, he has won several awards in national and international exhibitions and was recognized by the Government of India for his services to Indian Philately. He enjoys philately because it helps him understand the history of the world especially during that tumultuous period and motivates him to travel to different parts of the world. Madhu resides in Atlanta, with his wife Radhika and daughter Mallika.