Peshwa Acharya Recollects Memories With Rajeev Karwal

Peshwa Acharya May 14, 2021

I came to know about the sad demise of Rajeev Karwal yesterday morning, and it was really saddening. My heartfelt condolences to his family. I think it is a big loss for the Electronics Industry, CDIT retail & also Professionals Managers community and of course all his friends & colleagues.

In my longish innings at Reliance Retail, during my first few months, I worked with Rajeev as my immediate boss. (In fact, I remember the long hours of brainstorming & discussion together trying to do create the World's best CDIT / Technology Retailing format, born a bit later as Reliance Digital Retail Ltd. Digital, now one of the largest & highly valued Electronics retailer in the world). He was a very successful senior executive in the CDIT/ Electronics domain. I think he had great people relationship skills, Trade & Media management skills, and also last few years turned into an accomplished entrepreneur, making an impact on society.

He was always very forthright in expressing his viewpoints. He had a relatively short stint at Reliance Digital / Reliance Retail, but still, within this time, I could understand his style of clarity of expression & direct approach.

I still remember, when in the early days of our work, we did not know each other style of working. Rajeev comes from the Consumer durables industry & me from FMCG. I think he may have been trying to gauge my style & way of working. I was at the office quite late, at Tulsiani chambers, Nariman point, and Rajeev was possibly operating from Delhi over a week. We were on Email, connecting with each other, and question/answer was going on, possibly 10 pm or later. Once Rajeev understood that I am on the ball, and replying immediately to the email, he said fine & okay. I think he was a hard taskmaster but would really support hard-working team members, who got value on the table.

Also, his style of functioning was to have a detailed meeting with all functional heads, get into details, try to solve the issues, and move projects ahead. Of course, he would directly talk to all team members, cutting through hierarchy if required for a purpose.

This weekly meeting culture, he also dis at Philips. I heard that even in Philips, every Saturday he would review progress against commitments for all departments, seek explanations for success and failure and lend support as needed.

One of the key learnings which young managers & executives could take away from Rajeev’s managerial style is that If you would like to succeed in the Technology / CDIT / consumer durables marketing it may be very important a ) To build excellent trade relations & personal relationship with the Trade 2) Media & PR has a great role in positioning the product & service especially in Consumer durables / Auto / Mobile / Electronics, hence build an honest personal yet professional relationship with them. Rajeev strongly believed in the above 2 shibboleths.

At Reliance Retail though he was there only a few months, he was able to get a team especially the Consumer Durables folks together and have clarity of expectations from them etc. When he announced his sudden exit & departure, I still remember, that myself with a few colleagues set up a quick farewell party for him, at Marine drive at Geoffrey's, Marine plaza. He was an extremely peoples person, and we spent some nice few hours party time with him at Geoffrey’s, I think way back in 2006.

I was in touch with him, at a personal level after 2006. We spoke even a few months ago when I was enquiring about Milagrow’s Global Leaders in Service Robots' new Home cleaning robot. I am happy that together Rajeev & Myself have been able to create one of the most successful Electronics / Technology Retail networks & Format, today which serves as the offline bulwark of Jiyo also.

It is a sad sad time, and too early for him to leave us! Deepest condolences to your family.

The author is Peshwa Acharya, Chief Sales Marketing Officer, Ampersand Group