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PHOTO: S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

FINDING TIME Lakshmi Kruti Vasan

They’d probably be surprised to hear she loves cooking too. That’s because people who know her are more likely to think of this former cricketer outdoors, travelling to exotic locales or paragliding and doing water sports.

All of which she loves too — this single mom wears a lot of different hats. And the one that’s been winning her accolades of late is her role as director of Crest Point Management Plus, the Indian arm of Crestcom International, the acclaimed management skills training company from the U.S.

Since 1994, Lakshmi, along with her business partner Naresh Purushotham, has trained over 10,000 managers all over India for companies such as Wipro and Cognizant, and she has won the top enrolment award from the company for the last eight years for bringing in more trainees than any of the other 150 franchisees worldwide.

The Crestcom journey began during a difficult period in her life. In 1992, her husband passed away suddenly, leaving behind their one-and-a-half year old daughter. She quit her job at a real estate company, and for the next two years focused all her energies on bringing up Shravanyaa. “I wasn’t thinking of anything else,” she says.

That changed when her colleague Naresh convinced her to come with him to meet representatives from Crestcom International to become their sole franchisees in India. They got the franchise, and suddenly, Lakshmi was thrown into the world of direct-selling for the first time, having to go meet CEOs and MDs and present her management programme, ‘Bullet Proof Manager’ to them.

“It was difficult, but I was at a stage in my life when I had to succeed at whatever I did,” she says candidly. “I had to bring up a daughter and I couldn’t afford not to work anymore.”

Luckily, she says, Chennai embraced them: “I was amazed by the companies’ and the individuals’ hunger for learning.” And Crestcom gave them a freedom few other international training companies do — to modify the programme according to local needs.

Today, Lakshmi travels to the U.S. annually to train members from the other 150 franchisees. But the former South Zone cricketer has a lot more she wants to achieve — she wants to expand the company’s portfolio, go trekking in the Himalayas, continue to learn to be a good mother to her 18-year-old daughter and oh, continue with her social work initiatives. “Sometimes I feel there isn’t enough time for all the things I want to do,” she says laughing.

But she has made time for ‘BPO to BOP”, an initiative with Microsoft and Sutherland where X standard children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are trained to work at BPOs after they finish XII standard.

“The first batch of 40 children has just passed out, and I believe they’re as good as graduates,” she says excitedly. “These kids will move directly into the 15 to 20K income bracket, and they’ll have the money to support their families or study further. Once they’re placed, I’ll be on top of the world!”

Well, she certainly has every reason to be!

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