Executive Decision Making | ByGeorge You Got It

Among the great technocrats who made the world a better place, Sam Pitroda stands tall and incomparable having ushered in the grand telecom revolution in our country. His vision and execution stands unparallelled, and our telecom success story owes so much to him, his remarkable leadership, and that rare yet definitive ‘can do’ attitude.

Pitroda pulled off what was thought of as impossible. From 2 million telephones for 800 million people in the eighties, we stand now at 1170 million telephones for 1.4 billion people.

By setting up C-DOT a governmental organization, and as its Prinicipal Advisor he ambitiously went after building modern electronic exchanges and switching systems, and successfully launched an array of rugged communication devices well designed for Indian conditions. The ubiquitous Public Call Offices (PCO)s mushroomed all over the country, the tremendous speed of scale-up reflecting the value creation and the commercial opportunities delivered by this new industry. He engendered an egalitarian culture in the organization, informal with a problem-solving attitude, with a chutzpah to take on whatever challenges coming their way.

Pitroda pulled off what was thought of as impossible. From 2 million telephones for 800 million people in the eighties, we stand now at 1170 million telephones for 1.4 billion people. His greatness lies in connecting the dots, seeing the big picture, and more importantly taking confident steps forward, utterly fearless of the outcome. In the process he created absolute telecom magic.