HEAVY MITTAL

SUNIL BHARTI MITTAL HAS SPENT A LIFETIME IN TELECOM, CREATING A MAMMOTH CALLED BHARTI AIRTEL. NOW, HE IS BACKING ONEWEB FOR A HIGHER TRAJECTORY

- Krishna Gopalan

SUNIL BHARTI MITTAL admits to not being the best person to lead a company in peaceful and good times. "That is why I leave it to people like Gopal [Vittal, MD & CEO, Bharti Airtel] to do that. But when there is a crisis, you'll find me right in the centre of action because I can bring a lot of stability," he says. Look back at the growth of Mittal's telecom business, and you note that the Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises has weathered many storms, including regulatory regimes, cut-price competition, and quicksands in Africa.

Mittal-whom the jury that decided the BT-PwC India's Best CEOs picked as the Business Icon of the Yearis the only survivor from the mid-1990s when he was one of the pioneers of mobile telephony in India. Other pioneers sold out (one to him), big international names came and left, and the technology changed from bulky handsets with outrageous call rates to smartphones with dirt-cheap data used by everyone. Not a small achievement for a man with no background in telecom.

UP AND DOWN START

When Bharti Airtel went public in 2002, it was the first from the nascent mobile telephony sector to get listed. There was no 'data' story; the first smartphones and today's ubiquitous Android operating system were five years away. Today, it is hard to find an Indian without a mobile number, a prerequisite to getting linked to government welfare schemes.

Bharti Airtel's stock tanked to ₹19 about a year after listing from an offer price of ₹45. Apart from a large retail base, the company's marquee investors were Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) and Warburg Pincus. Then, Reliance Communications (RCom) launched its mobile services in December 2002 with aggressive tariffs and handsets at a throwaway ₹500.