Chandramouli Venkatesan passes away, industry mourns
Chandramouli Venkatesan passes away due to pancreatic cancer on October 6, 2020. He was 54. Leaders across industries mourned the sad demise of Chandramouli Venkatesan, CEO, special projects at Pidilite Industries Ltd, from 2017 and he was the author of ‘Catalyst, Get Better at Getting Better’ published by Penguin Random House India in 2018.
Mouli, started his career with Asian Paints after which he moved to GE Financial Services, then to MIRC Electronics “Onida”, Cadbury’s/Mondelez, and later to Pidilite Industries. That’s a wide range of industries and Mouli left a mark in every company he worked in, especially on his people and the ecosystem. His bosses always had good things to say about him.
Remembering Venkatesan, Anil Viswanathan, Senior Director – Marketing (Chocolates), Insights and Analytics, Mondelez India said, “Chandramouli, or Mouli as how people used to fondly call him, is no more. He leaves behind his father, wife and daughter.
On Mouli’s demise, Shiv Shivakumar, Group Executive President, Corporate Strategy & Business Development, Aditya Birla Group said, “Mouli was very successful in his latter twenty years, being a corporate CEO and exploring the world of publishing as an author. Mouli ran a successful training program and he distilled the learnings into a book – Catalyst published in 2018.”
“In his book Catalyst, Mouli says that a career is split into two parts: the first twenty years and the second or succeeding twenty years. Achieving success in the second twenty years is more difficult as the pyramid gets steep and you have to learn to be a thought leader. I was on a TV panel with two of his favorite bosses – Anand Kripalu and Bharat Puri and we discussed careers and why some people propel ahead and why some people stagnate in the second half of their careers. The dominant point from Mouli was that individual growth determines success in the second half of career and this is a combination of knowledge, skills, judgement, influence, and communication.” Shiv added.
