Sole Provider

From next month, an Indian will be in charge of the Reebok brand worldwide. Next month, Muktesh Pant, Reebok International’s regional director for India, the Middle East and Africa, will be moving from New Delhi to the Boston headquarters of the $3.2-billion Reebok International sportswear major. As vice-president, international brand marketing, he will be in charge of the worldwide maintenance and growth of the Reebok brand, surely one of the 50 most valuable logos on the planet.

It’s rather different from what the 44-year-old Pant, as a child, wanted to be when he grew up: a chemistry teacher.

"I’ve done a lot of operational jobs," euphemises Pant. "It’s time I put my experience to good use." The first thing that strikes you about the man is his humility. There’s nothing flashy about the man, no aura, no glibness. But a remarkable ability to snap into sync with people he meets, to put them at ease immediately. When he speaks, he speaks with conviction, giving the listener a sense that what he is saying is all there is to it: he is hiding nothing. He is that rare sort of ceo, the sort you tend to trust.

If normal is boring, Muktesh Pant would be a barbiturate. No sharp edges, tics, biases, strange beliefs, sidelong glances, excess nervous energy, unusual hobbies. How do you profile this man?

He runs. He has been running since his iit Kanpur days (he did chemical engineering there, batch of 1976). He has run across the world, at the Waikiki beach in Hawaii ("I love running there, except that you feel insecure about how much fitter the others are"), along the Delhi ridge, at the Central Park in New York ("where I’m always scared I’ll get mugged for my Reeboks"), round Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi race course. He prefers to take the flight that reaches London’s Heathrow airport at 4:55 in the morning, so he can have a run on the airport’s perimeter road before hitting office. In 1994, Morris Dennis, a London-based headhunter, called him in Delhi and asked him, since he was so passionate about running, would he like to set up Reebok’s Indian operations? Pant would like.

Pant did his schooling at Saint Joseph’s, Nainital, where his father, who worked with the Uttar Pradesh government, was posted. His mother, Shivani, is a famous Hindi novelist. The only son and the youngest of four children, Pant excelled in school. "Since I wanted to do chemistry, I was told that the iits were the best place to study. So I took the entrance exam."

Then, in the summer vacation at the end of his fourth year at iit, he went to Nocil for industrial training. "That’s when I realised that engineering by itself would get me nowhere. Engineers are given a pat on the back and the best employee award, while it’s the marketing and finance guys who rake in the moolah." So, when some months later, Hindustan Lever came to the iit campus to recruit engineers, Pant knew what he didn’t want. "I asked them if it was possible to accommodate me in the marketing department."

Pant wasn’t too hopeful of getting a positive response. In fact, by then he had already secured admission at iim, Ahmedabad, paid his fees, and had even been allotted a roll number. But Levers invited him to Mumbai for another round of interviews. Reminisces former Levers marketing chief Siddhartha ‘Shunu’ Sen, who was on the panel

that interviewed Pant: "It was unusual in those days to appoint someone in the marketing department who didn’t have an mba degree, but he clinched it in the interview."

That was the end of chemistry. At Levers, he led Surf’s fightback against Nirma in the early ’80s. "The Nirma battle taught Levers’ detergent division not to ignore the mass market, and showed us the opportunity we had lost." He spent 15 years in the company, from 1976 to 1991. "Hindustan Lever," says Pant unequivocally, "is the most pre-eminent company in India. It ingrained in me the very best management practices."

But what he learnt most there, he says, was integrity. "For me, at the end of the day, integrity is the driving force. I know it sounds biblical, but I believe it always comes back to you." There are many who would vouch for his obsession with honesty. Recalls Sen: "In the late ’80s, he was about to join Pepsi, and had already given in his papers at Levers. Then it was discovered that one of his junior managers at Levers’ exports division had been committing fraud. Even though he didn’t need to, Pant returned his offer letter to Pepsi, decided to stay back and sort things out at Levers. That showed character." Pant eventually joined Pepsi for a four-year stint in 1991, where he headed the exports division, and later its bottling operations.

Says Reebok dealer Subhash Gupta: "He sticks to every verbal commitment he makes, even if he finds out later that it would cost Reebok. Honesty is the principle he lives by." But it hasn’t been easy. "Delhi is full of touts who are always offering to get you licences and government clearances. It’s difficult to steer clear," Pant admits.

His move to Boston is the direct result of what he has achieved in India in four-and-a-half years. With a relatively meagre investment of $4 million, Reebok has achieved numero uno position among the three big international sportswear brands—the others are Adidas and Nike—in India. Reebok’s sales (Rs 50 crore last year) are more than the turnovers of its two rivals put together.

Why is Reebok India where it is? First, Reebok is available through more stores than the other two foreign brands combined. While Pant’s brand is available in 90 exclusive stores, and 250 other shoe stores, Nike and Adidas retail at roughly 60 stores each. "We realised that we didn’t need to sell the Reebok brand, so our advertising spends are lower than our two competitors. Instead, we’ve focused on availability." In fact, he and his team of 45 have set up the largest franchisee network for Reebok anywhere in the world.

Pant also focused on pricing. Indeed, that’s been his biggest challenge. Pre-launch market research revealed that the customer wouldn’t be willing to shell out more than Rs 2,500 for his Reeboks. But that was exactly where Reebok’s range began. By 1996, Pant’s team was able to introduce the Classic range priced between Rs 990 and Rs 1,450. Today, Classic accounts for 40 per cent of Reebok India’s turnover. "But even as I was introducing lower-priced shoes, I had to be careful not to compromise on Reebok’s brand equity. And that’s what headquarters was worried about too." More so since Reebok views India as a long-term market, which will develop at its own pace. The last thing the company wanted to do was to erode its brand equity in favour of short-term sales. Obviously, Pant has been successful on that count. In fact, what he achieved, both in terms of distribution and lower prices, goes against Reebok’s international practices, and are firsts for the company.

Given that Reebok has been taking a bit of a beating from Nike and Adidas internationally, Pant’s achievements obviously caught the attention of the big bosses in Massachusetts. From country manager, India, in April 1998, Pant was made regional director, India, Middle East and Africa. And within a year now, he’s part of the company’s global core team.

The last few years have seen a number of Indians rising to the top echelons of global corporate giants—Rana Talwar, ceo of Standard Chartered Bank; Rajat Gupta, ceo of McKinsey; Victor Menezes, chief operating officer at Citigroup are a few among them—but Pant’s case is unique, because he is the only one who has risen to a top international position from a career built in India.

So what now? Forty-four isn’t anywhere near the age when your career culminates. There will certainly be more plum jobs for Pant in the future. But the one he is going to is surely the most challenging he has handled till date, in its scale, reach and complexity. Pant is looking forward to it, and not just for the work. "I am told the Americans take their weekends rather seriously. So I am hoping to spend some time with the family." His wife and three-year-old daughter sure are looking forward to that. As for Pant, he loves running along the bank of the River Charles that winds through Boston.