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Seemant Jauhari

Class of 2005
CEO - Apollo Hospitals Education & Research


Previous Occupation: Manager  Nokia Siemens Networks
Present Occupation CEO - Apollo Hospitals Education & Research
Work Experience: Cumulative work experience of 12 years in business consulting, business planning, strategy, marketing & project management
Interests – Personal:
Personal: Sports, especially lawn tennis and cricket, food, travel and music.

Can you tell us a little about your family background/ history?
I was born in New Delhi and brought up mostly in Delhi where I completed my schooling at Delhi Public School, RK Puram. My father was a civil servant (IAS officer) from the Andhra Cadre, because of which I enjoyed my childhood in the districts of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and (and continue to have) a strong relationship with AP and Hyderabad. My father retired from the IAS two years back  and is now part of the AP Administrative Tribunal. My mother is a homemaker and an English literature graduate who enjoys poetry, travelling and movies. I met my wife during my business consulting days at Ernst & Young (E&Y). She has become an entrepreneur, starting up a preventive healthcare company. We have a daughter who is three years and nine months old and attends pre-primary at Oakridge.
Growing up, I was mostly a shy person with creative skills. Very early on, I had an opportunity to travel to Europe and Asia and managed to visit over 25 cities. I went on to study engineering at Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, and then spent four years in the software industry in India and the United States before I joined the ISB.

Briefly describe your personal and professional achievements (including recent awards/ special projects).
Personal achievements:

  • I was an avid lawn tennis player; I was the runner up at the Siri Fort tennis tournament, a semi-finalist at the BIT Open and reached the second round of the Limca tournament).
  • I served as president of the largest social club at BIT, Mesra 
  • I was recognised as a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International for my community service.

Professional Achievements:

  • CEO of the Research Foundation at Apollo Hospitals, director of three joint venture companies and slated to become the Head of Innovation at Apollo Hospitals.
  • Established an innovative enterprise in bio-banking (named among the top 10 life sciences ideas of the decade by Time magazine).
  • Introduced personalised medicine at Apollo Hospitals to build cutting-edge capability for the group.
  • Spearheaded investments into a drug discovery services company based on bio-banking.
  • Architected a collaboration with a Canada-based software start-up to co-develop a disruptive diagnostic tool for patients suffering from cardiovascular disease.
  • Led a first-of-its-kind collaboration with one of the largest medical devices companies in the world to co-develop an innovative dialysis device to transform renal care by introducing a portable, affordable and scalable technology. 
  • Played a pivotal role in creating the global delivery transformation for Nokia Siemens Networks (€ 7 billion) as part of the strategy & business development (BD) team.
  • Led the competitive intelligence and best practice exchange programmes as part of the strategy team.
  • Spearheaded the “Vibrant Gujarat” campaign for the government of Gujarat to promote foreign investment while at Ernst & Young; engaged over 50 multinational corporations (MNCs) and achieved significant investments in 2006-07.
  • Co-conceptualised and commenced the real estate practice at E&Y.
  • Instrumental in establishing and growing the health sciences practice at E&Y through BD, thought leadership and priority account programmes.
  • Received certificates and letters of appreciation from the Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Principal Secretary of Gujarat.
  • Speaker at Clinical Trials Conference, Singapore; Ethics Conference, Delhi, and Pharmacovigilance Conference, Delhi
  • Selected to represent Apollo Hospitals for the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-led Executive Development Programme for research and development (R&D)/ technology heads from Indian industry organised by the Recanati Business School, Tel Aviv University, Israel. The programme focuses on the economics of corporate R&D and innovation.

Tell us about your profile pre-ISB, and recap your professional life after ISB, including your career progression.
I started my professional life as an assistant systems engineer with Tata Consultancy Services in Hyderabad. I started working as a developer in Lotus Notes on a first-of-its kind product for
e-governance (by choice) and later moved into development and software testing in telecom billing due to my qualifications. I was lucky to get an opportunity to play a key role in establishing an off-shore development centre for an MNC wherein I facilitated setting up processes, creating test cases for the product and training the team. My interest in finding faults with the software and efforts to make processes more efficient prompted me to evolve the testing process by introducing a level of automation in running test scripts. This resulted in a software patch release in three weeks as against two months with half the resources. Not only did this result in cost savings for the client but the additional bugs we identified generated additional revenue for my organisation. I always knew I wanted to do something big and the above achievement just validated that belief and pushed me harder to apply to the ISB.

Post-ISB, I joined Ernst & Young in a less known function (markets) where I got an opportunity to learn about health sciences. My objective was to build the health sciences practice by cutting across the available services solutions and creating synergies within the group for an optimal go-to-market. My role primarily involved marketing, events, BD, thought leadership and creation of the priority accounts programme. Subsequently, I was given an opportunity to join mainstream consulting wherein I led one of the largest business advisory assignments at that point in time, i.e., the “Vibrant Gujarat” campaign. Our mandate was to create a robust framework that could be leveraged year on year to reach out to potential investors globally, promote the investment potential in Gujarat, and matchmake and facilitate investment collaborations. This involved extensive global travel with very senior delegations whilst working closely with the government of Gujarat on the ground. Further, I had a chance to work across sectors such as health sciences, real estate, telecom and the government, spanning assignments such as market entry strategy, business plans, foreign investment promotion, feasibility studies etc. I left E&Y as a senior associate, business advisory services after approximately three years.

E&Y provided me with the diverse experience I was looking for and equipped me with some new skills in creativity, BD and consulting in general. At this point, it became important for me to evaluate the road ahead in terms of doing justice to my qualifications and experience in technology. At this time, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) was in the process of moving its global headquarters for services from Munich to India, and the role of a senior manager, strategy and BD, came my way. Since the role involved the chaos of establishing something new, I found it exciting and joined NSN in Gurgaon. I spent the next two years working extensively on an organisation-wide consolidation project, a complex feat given the intense competition among telecom infrastructure vendors. The project involved conceptualising a framework to consolidate people, IT, infrastructure and processes across the €7.5 billion organisation. It involved creating extensive business cases, interfacing with business heads and account teams and driving consensus in the organisation. We achieved partial success in consolidating and streamlining a subset of the organisation and processes. 

Around this time, I began to realise that my passion did not lie with technology and compared it with my experience in health sciences at E&Y. I needed stability and that would emanate from something I was passionate about and could do for the next five years at least. Following my instincts and armed with my past experience, I joined Apollo Hospitals as the CEO of Research and Research Education, where my mandate was to help create the third pillar of Apollo, such that it is a research-led hospital delivering clinical excellence. What started with clinical trials management and education services expanded to validation studies for devices, software and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products as well. On the sidelines, the group consolidated smaller joint ventures related to research − clinical research, stem cell cord blood banking and bio-banking. I was made a director of these companies, overseeing these businesses on behalf of Apollo Hospitals. Going further, I am now in the process of establishing an Innovations Office, where Apollo can incubate ideas, commercialise them and spin off innovative companies. Such an office would, at the same time, also validate existing cutting-edge technologies and therapies and introduce them first in India to benefit Indian patients. This experience has been extremely diverse, fruitful and entrepreneurial. It has allowed me to converge strategy with operations, creativity in collaborations and people management across the spectrum to create discrete value for Apollo Hospitals.

Describe your fondest memory of ISB.
Rewarding myself with piping hot biryani at 1 AM after completing assignments, parties at SV2 and the convocation.

In your personal life, how have you changed post-ISB? Do you see yourself doing something differently because you went to ISB? What has left a lasting impression?
There is a spirit to excel as I’m always reminded that I am from ISB and carry that brand with me. I am now fearless in providing new thoughts, leading new initiatives, and dealing with new people in new geographies.

I saw students from different walks of life with diverse experiences achieve great heights. It led me to believe that anything is possible if one is convinced of it and is willing to take the initiative. This left a lasting impression on me to tread those untrodden paths, which more often than not, are exciting and successful. Conservatism in business can only lead you to incremental benefits, whereas the quantum leaps come from doing different things and doing the same things differently.

How do you think ISB has contributed to your career growth?
ISB has very significantly contributed to my career growth. It has helped me identify skills that I possessed but did not leverage and equipped me to think in a structured manner. From an assistant systems engineer at TCS to heading medical research and innovation for India's largest integrated healthcare company, it’s been an exciting journey. ISB is at the centre of this evolution.

If you have to sum up ISB in one word:
Life-changing! 

What was the main highlight of your programme at the ISB?
The programme was intense, diverse and delivered through the best gurus existing globally. The balance of theory, assignments and industry exposure was very helpful.   

Word of advice for the current class?
Follow your gut, and validate your choices and decisions using structured thought to pave your career path in a direction that you would be passionate about.
If you are changing your industry, get into consulting to gain an exposure to diverse experiences if you are not clear about which industry to choose, or opt for a strategy role in an industry you are clear about. A word of caution: strategy roles are great to begin with but don’t overstay (two years is enough); remember they are the farthest away from the source of revenue!

Your job fit is extremely important and is correlated with your success and personal/ professional satisfaction. Money is important, but always cross the “job fit” gate first and then consider the money.  

Believe in horizontal leadership − create discrete value in the context you are provided no matter which level you are at and it will lead to vertical leadership as a natural progression. 

What was your favourite course/ class at ISB and why?
Negotiations. Experiential Learning Programme (ELP) in sports came a close second. They were the perfect run up to my consulting job post-ISB.

Was there anyone during your time at ISB who acted as a mentor for you? Tell us a little about this relationship and why it was valuable.
Ravindra Upadrashta: He always told me about believing more in my ability to leverage networks and helped me realise this going forward in my professional life.

Ranjit Babu: He was quite categorical that while academic performance is required, not excelling at academics did not indicate that one cannot excel in real life, and that what works for one may not work for another.

What are the areas in which you can contribute to ISB?
Mentoring students, information sessions, interviews, policies and collaborations (healthcare/ Innovation related)

What do you enjoy most about your current career position?
Diverse experiences in terms of business models and technologies in a rapidly evolving industry. It offers a full spectrum of experience across functions − collaborations, legal agreements, BD, marketing, operations, HR and networks. 

What is the next new thing in the industry or vertical you are working in? Any trends that you can see?
Innovation. I am in the process of creating a dedicated innovations office which will introduce new technologies and therapies to India and facilitate their availability on a large scale. Further, it will help create an idea bank from clinicians, commercialise a sub-set and spin off innovative companies, thus creating intellectual property.  

Hospitals have achieved clinical excellence to an extent, and scale-up is predictable and slow, whereas the patient population and disease diversity is overwhelming. To differentiate, healthcare delivery needs to innovate rapidly, bringing forth cutting-edge technologies and therapies to improve patient outcomes, improve access to healthcare and make healthcare more affordable.