Jitendra Kulkarni quits Redington

Redington India's high-profile CEO Jitendra Kulkarni has quit to pursue a
career on his own. Kulkarni is starting his own IT services venture soon and
will focus on supply chain management for IT distribution companies and vendors.
Currently traveling to Pune for some project-related work he, spoke to The DQ
Week and confirmed his resignation from Redington India. “Yes. The news about
my resignation is true. And September 30, 2006, was my last day at Redington.
Now, I am involved in my new project, which will take another month's time to
roll out,” said Kulkarni.

In reply to a question about his new venture, Kulkarni said, “I will
announce it at the right time. All I can say now is that I am going to be in the
IT business, directly and indirectly supporting the distribution, sales and
logistics aspects of business which come under the wider scope of supply chain
management.” The project is currently under conceptual stage and Kulkarni sees
a big opportunity for his IT services, with VAT effectively coming into India.

Jitendra Kulkarni,  Ex-CEO, Redington

Would Kulkarni's departure from Redington create a void at office and who
would succeed him are million dollar questions in the industry circles. Kulkarni
joined Redington in October '98 as GM in Singapore, mainly to put an ERP
system in the IT framework. Within three months, R Srinivasan, one of the
directors on board and a key person at Redington, offered him the CEO post of
Redington India, seeing his skill sets and capabilities. No doubt, Kulkarni did
his job well and lived up to the expectations. He took Redington India from
strength to strength, to make it a leading IT distribution house in the country
today. Kulkarni's many experiments and innovations in business turned out to
be very successful initiatives. Not to mention the company's recent venture in
to consumer electronics/home appliances distribution with LG Electronics.

Before joining Redington in '98, Kulkarni worked with Tech Pacific. In
fact, he started his career with Godrej & Boyce in 1992, taking care of the
EDP activities. He was involved in various facets of business including payroll
management, manufacturing, finance and logistics, among others, which proved to
be the best learning ground for him. Kulkarni played a key role in the
organization, when the Tech Pacific joint venture happened in 1995—96, by
implementing systems and processes for smooth and effective functioning of
business.

Kulkarni is a mechanical graduate from College of Engineering, Karad (Maharashtra),
and holds a management degree in finance from Narsee Monjee Institute of
Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai. Later, he also did a PG diploma program in
software technology from NCSD. Kulkarni hails from a place called Wai in Satara
District, Maharashtra, which is just 90km from Pune. Currently, Kulkarni is
settled in Singapore, where his family resides, though he frequently shuttles
between Chennai (India) and Singapore.

Meanwhile, the market news is that R Srinivasan, who created the CEO post for
Kulkarni in 1998, will return to Redington India as MD, while key people like PS
Neogi and Kasturi Rangan will be elevated to the post of Presidents and Kulkarni's
responsibilities will be shared between them.

S Gopikrishna