Pradeep Dhar
Director
Vitasta Consulting Pvt Ltd
Ensuring Growth
Constantly try to understand myself better. As I believe that you can make sense of the world only if can
make sense of your own self. Also seek 360 degree feedback from the people in my circle of influence.
Current Job description
I play a dual role in the organization. In the first part I am the friend philosopher and guide to all team
members in the company. I also help strategize, manage finance, and conduct critical level CRM in the executive
search business. I have also helped create operational processes as I believe that need for being process
oriented is critical in a service business. In the second part I am heading the Value delivery team in the HR
outsourcing business. In this we take over fully or partially the HR function of the company. I also function as a
business development resource for this division.
Leadership qualities
There are as many leadership styles and philosophies as there are leaders. I believe a leader should be
somebody who is able to walk the talk as far as the values are concerned, provide a sense of purpose and
direction to his team, create balance between people needs and business needs which often seem at
loggerheads.
Managing personal and professional life
Part of connecting dots means for me to see more meaning from the same input or entirely different
meaning from the same stimulus. Executive search as a business has evolved tremendously in the last decade. It
has kept my entire strategic team on its proverbial toes. For us the dots have changed color, contour and are
constantly changing its co-ordinates. Keeping up is a constant challenge. Have I made mistakes? Many and we
see it as a part of learning curve and that is why we encourage all our people to make new mistakes, but we
loathe making the same over and over again.
Handling Grievances
Most super-ordinates don’t earn the trust of the subordinate so as to he or she coming up and expressing a
grievance. If one has I would feel that he has me in his comfort zone and that I treat as a good start. Then I
would try to understand what the underlying issues are? Is it systemic, personality related or something else?
Then the challenge is to work out a win-win. This part is often tough but that’s what makes the role of a leader
worthwhile.
My advice
I would like to quote Viktor Frankl here, “There are really only three virtues: objectivity, courage,
and sense of responsibility”. If a leader is able to display these virtues in good measure consistently then one is
on his/her way to greatness. All of these are tested on a daily basis in a fiercely competitive and success driven
environment that any business is. Objectivity helps you to carefully create options, courage drives you to take
the correct option instead of easy one and sense of responsibility gives you perspective in which to take these
decisions or make choices.
Important career decisions
To take a tough detour from a well settled career in sales and Marketing in the corporate sector to
entrepreneurship in HR services. To work alongside with your spouse in the same business and to remain clean
in the face of big temptations of growing big by dubious and unethical practices.
Family background
I am a son of a mid-ranking police officer and an educationist. My sister heads a large international
educational institution up north. My wife who is the founding director of Vitasta Consulting Pvt. ltd is CWA by
education. I have a son who is in second year Electrical and electronics engineering and a daughter who is in
Ninth standard.
Influenced by
No one person stands out but I have picked from each source I could absorb from and still keep doing that. I
would have a pretty long list of people to thank that way. A lot of them who would be in this list are from my
childhood days as well.
My views on India Technical development
There is less than adequate quality of technical talent in the country although we have the numbers. Large
part of the good quality intellectual capital is used up in churning not so higher end processes in the I.T industry.
Engineering industry in India is not putting in desired amount of research capital in creating new technologies,
products and systems. Research in private sector is practically non-existing and Government research bodies are
not sufficiently result oriented and slow moving. Having said all that, I am amazed at the ingenuity of the
technical throughput in the SME sector. They work with big constraints but still produce some world beaters at a
fraction of a cost of any advanced economy.
