SHE walks into the room, her striking red frame glasses perched on her head to hold the hair back. A trademark of sorts, she's never seen without them. We are short on time and expecting to see a no-nonsense corporate honcho. She is the no-nonsense person but not without the fun. "Is it necessary to look all serious and business like for the pictures? I mean it's really not me," and that's Punita Lal for you.
Executive director, Pepsico, Lal, 48, is the marketing head for the beverage for South Asia, responsible for the over $1.5 billion market in the region. Aptly so as she represents every bit the brand's youthful, fresh, fun image. Buzzing with energy 24/7, she is spontaneity at its best.
For a person who was extremely shy while growing up and intimidated by public speaking, marketing seems an odd choice. Which is why it's not where she started. An alumnus of St. Stephen's College in Delhi where she grew up, Lal was interested in advertising and knew well that that was what lay ahead. "I was always fascinated with consumer behaviour and the psychology behind it, so it was only natural to choose the field," she says.
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Graduating in Economics, she moved on to the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, for her MBA, specialising in marketing and behavourial sciences. Coming from a sheltered upbringing, it was a time of realisations. "The huge accumulation of talent makes you realise you're only a small fish in a big pond. It's really made me what I am today," she says of her years there. It's also where she met her husband, Ajay Lal, now managing director of the private equity firm, AIF Capital, and a classmate then.
The two got married the following year while Lal was working with Lintas (now Lowe Lintas) as an account manager in Chennai before heading to JWT where she became part of the team that launched Pepsi in India. "I used to watch reels of the 'Best of Advertising' and coming across the Michael Jackson ads for Pepsi, I thought, I would give my right arm to work on something like this."
Before she knew it, Lal was on the Pepsi account. Her first assignment there was the beverage's launch commercial in 1989, the iconic "Are you ready for the magic?" ad that had musician Remo Fernandes and actor Juhi Chawla in a jugalbandi. "Pepsi being a western brand, the idea was to amalgamate it with the Indian ethos." It is also the campaign she counts as her most memorable.
"It was such an exciting time. There was creativity in the air, it was one of those zipping offices." Lal was so engrossed in it that since she was pregnant with her first child, colleagues joked that the baby would only respond to the tune of the commercial. Her colleague at JWT and long time friend, Pooja Kapur, vice president at the advertising agency, Draftfcb, in Hong Kong says, "I think her biggest strength is that she is very decisive and carries the team together, nurturing those working under her."
In 1993, Lal moved to the Unilever account, handling their dental business and later launched Kellogg's, the breakfast cereal in India. By now she had had adequate experience in the FMCG segment and in 1998, when her husband moved to Hong Kong, Lal decided to switch to marketing. It was a brave decision considering that although she knew the sector, she had never worked on the other side and giving up an established reputation was a gamble. Moreover, it was a culture she did not know. She took on the challenge, joining Coca Cola Inc.
"Yes as a lot of people would say-I have slept with the enemy," she says with a laugh. But being the marketing director for Hong Kong, Macau and Mongolia and working on 14 brands of the company was a great learning curve. After five years in the job, Lal thought it was time for a break and in 2002, took a sabbatical for more than a year. It was the best thing to have happened to her, she says.
"As working people, our work becomes our persona and the reason to exist. We forget that there are things beyond it." That's what she learnt during the time. Not only did she rekindle her love for travel, exploring nine countries, she also took pottery classes and did everything she hadn't been able to while she was working. It was rewarding and liberating.
However, the last five years in her current assignment at Pepsico in Delhi have been about juggling balls and not let any of them drop. Her day starts at 6.30 a.m. and she heads off for her 'interrupted' morning walk as she comes back halfway to see off her children, 18-year-old Sidhartha, who's now preparing for undergraduate studies in the US and daughter Anjali, 14. It's the only time she sees them in the day before dinner.
The housekeeping is handled over breakfast. By 9 a.m. she is in office and wading through a day of meetings, to be back home only by 7.30 p.m. for an early dinner. She makes sure the family is always together over the meal and spends at least an hour or two catching up. The schedule is tight but she makes the most of it.
"My work's like a drug, it's my daily dose of adrenaline. Though it leaves me with very little time to indulge in anything else, I just can't do without it." A trained classical singer, for an hour every week, she heads to her music class. It's the only time that is completely hers.
Her music collection is enviable and favourites include polar opposites -old Hindi film songs by Hemant Kumar, Talat Mehmood and Geeta Dutt, as well as jazz. Besides music, pottery is a passion and Lal's creations on the walls of her home are evidence of it. She finds cooking therapeutic too. Baking cakes are almost a Sunday ritual.
It seems like the perfect life but Lal has had her share of glitches. Probably, the toughest time she has encountered professionally was the pesticide controversy in 2006. "It was the most stressful time in my career. Though the industry had seen an earlier problem on the same lines in 2003, it was a first for me. I saw the reverse side of consumer loyalty."
She handled it with confidence, quickly briefing the press, sharing facts and in five days flat had a commercial running, showing Pepsi CEO Rajiv Bakshi in the bottling plant and assuring customers of the product's safety. Accordingly, the woman behind Nimbooz, India's most popular and first packaged nimbu-paani drink, has been far less worried about the recent rumours of the product causing 'high-bone fever'. "There is no such disease, in fact even AIIMS has denied its existence. It's an absolute hoax," she says.
It is this certainty that her husband reaffirms. "Punita as a person is very confident and extremely comfortable with herself," he says, recounting their 20th anniversary dinner in Paris. "Her luggage had not arrived by then and all she had were her travel clothes but she did not let that impact the evening at all. It's amazing to be with someone who doesn't need much in life to be happy."
For Lal, family is paramount and travel is a shared love, so a camping or trailer holiday is an annual event where the family is just on their own. "The best ones have been in Canada and New Zealand," she remembers fondly. "I guess I love the hills because of all the childhood trips to Kasauli." Another special childhood memory is that of devouring alphonsos in the summer holidays in Mumbai, where her grandparents were. About holidays, Lal now wants to head off to one in the Mediterranean.
In the future, she sees herself living a peaceful retired life doing the things she loves and giving back to the community. "Or maybe I will visit my children, wherever they are. If they will have me, of course," she adds with a laugh.
5 Bonding tips for busy couples
1. Try to have lunch with each other, at least once in the week.
2. Do yoga or go for morning walks.
3. Make sure you have dinner as a family and catch up at the day's end.
4. Go on annual family holidays.
5. Remember the special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays and make them memorable.
Source:http://in.news.yahoo.com/
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