Doing What's Next - Life After Microsoft

Moving on from Microsoft has been interesting. To start with, I have realised that there is a world out there beyond the soft cocoon I was enveloped in for the last six years. I have also realised that I have been as busy being jobless, as I was when I held a job. I have been places, met many people, immersed myself in so many ideas, wandered cyberspace quite a bit, and I have seen the inside of my gym a lot more than I did before. Admittedly, I have missed my office, my team the routine, the stress, the frustration and the laughter. 

I must say that a lot of people have been enquiring of me, whether I intend to spend the rest of my life in idle worthlessness, or take up a worthy vocation sometime. Some have been curious, some have really been worried about me, and some have come to the firm conclusion that no one really wants to give me a job.

While I would like nothing more than spending the rest of my life in langurous lethargy, I have finally roused myself to go take up a worthy vocation - actually, take up several of them.

So to satisfy your morbid curiosity, and to set your worried minds to rest, here is what I intend to do:

At the outset, it is not conventional. As I hinted at earlier, I am not joining a single company in some executive position, nor am I doing this one startup that I have been talking about. Instead, over the next few months, I am going to be associated with a few things simultaneously. In a sense, I am putting my fingers in a few pies.

Certainly the largest pie, where I spend most of my time, is my association with Genesis Colors Pvt Limited as their Group Advisor and an Independent Director on the Board. Genesis Colors is India’s largest luxury retail company: it owns some iconic Indian fashion brands like Satya Paul, and runs the operations of global brands like Armani, Jimmy Choo, Bottega, Paul Smith, Canali, etc. in India. Besides that, it has a JV with Burberry. Genesis was started 15 years back by a couple of dynamic entrepreneurs, and is now the market leader  in its category in India. A bunch of private equity funds – Sequoia Capital, L Capital (LVMH’s PE Fund), Mayfield Fund, Henderson Global Investors, etc. – have invested in the company recently. My mandate will be to work closely with the GCPL team to help strengthen and transform the core business, set up internal processes and systems, build a team, and work towards growing the business to new customer segments and international marketing. Additionally, I will be responsible for building and growing the ecommerce opportunity for all their brands. I start on May 01. 

Besides that, I have decided to focus on investing-in and mentoring tech and ecommerce start-ups. To that effect, I am going on the Board of three to four VC-funded startups  in the ecommerce and tech services space, and will mentor them through their growth and fund-raising activities. The ones I can disclose currently are ETechies and Skoolshop. In addition, I will also be involved a little more deeply with a stealth startup in the Internet product space, in an investing and Director capacity.

So, I have decided to follow my heart and do a few things concurrently; perhaps, after a few months I will settle down with one of them full time. And if and when I do so, I do hope I make the right decision, unlike our friend below :-) :