If CEOs need to have lots of passion, perseverance and a streak of doggedness, S Devarajan, a former managing director of Tata Elxsi, displays a lot of these qualities as he describes incidents at various junctures in his career in his book, Designed to Win, The Tata Elxsi Story.

In the book he writes about this Tata company’s turnaround journey from a loss-making entity to one with a record high valuation. A major in AR/VR, visual simulation, medical imaging and product styling and design, now an immensely profitable company, it was FC Kohli, the founder of the Indian software industry and a former Chairman of TCS, who roped in Devarajan from a sales career at HCL as a general manager and eventually promoted him to the MD’s post to spearhead a revival. Devarajan also writes about encounters with Kohli in a separate chapter, which make for fascinating reading.

The book’s prologue is quite engrossing, and gives an insight into Devarajan’s mental toughness. As a 25-year-old sales engineer with HCL in 1981, he was to conclude a large deal with a paper mill in Kurnool, across the banks of the Tungabhadra river. Reaching there one morning, he found the ferry had left for the day.

The only way across was in a coracle, which, made from reed, looks like a large saucepan. Sitting at the centre of it, with water leaking onto his polished leather shoes and crisply ironed trousers, the coracle, often spinning about in the mighty river, got him safely to the other side.

The CFO, with whom he had a meeting, was quite aghast how he got across and took him to meet the company MD, who was quite impressed with his perseverance. The MD told the CFO to issue a purchase order and a cheque for an advance.

As he writes in the book, “Crossing the Tungabhadra wasn’t just about reaching the other side, it was about embracing the challenge…taking a leap of faith, no matter how daunting, which leads to opportunities that redefine our paths.”

This incident had an interesting denouement. In 1998 as CEO of Tata Elxsi, a sales engineer requested Devarajan to have breakfast with his father-in-law, who, it turned out was the MD of that paper mill, now retired. Remembering the name, the retired gentleman was curious to ascertain if he was the same person.

Nocturnal deal making

Fast forward to February 1999. Tata Elxsi needed to secure a major deal before the financial year end with Shyam Ramanna’s Crest Communications, a major animation studio based in Mumbai. The only issue was Ramanna, son of the famous nuclear scientist, Raja Ramanna, worked only through nights and rested by day. Devarajan boarded a flight at 6.30 p.m. from Bengaluru, worked through the night with Shyam and his wife Seema, who handled the finances.

There was a lot of drama with the deal being reworked multiple times, but in the end Devarajan and his team had a purchase order in hand at 4 a.m. and he managed to take the 6.30 a.m. flight to Bengaluru. Again, his doggedness was on display; it was early days of Tata Elxsi’s journey on the profitability route and Devarajan needed that order to boost the numbers. And, he wasn’t taking no for an answer!

In 1995, Devarajan, still the GM of the company — he would be made the MD the following year when its MD quit — had a face-off with Ratan Tata, a situation where he had to stick to his guns. Tata Elxsi had already had its IPO earlier. The company still had accumulated losses to clear. Tata Elxsi executives proposed a rights issue to shore up cash reserves. Ratan Tata’s response was immediate: “Who would invest more in a loss-making company?” But, they were confident and told Tata so.

Nomenclature googly

Meanwhile, Tata threw another bombshell — to change the name Elxsi as that entity was no longer in existence. As Devarajan recalls: ‘We were in the thick of non-performance. We had borrowed enough money from Tata Industries, debts were accumulating. I was keen that we make do with self-generated funds and not borrow anymore.” The CFO threw another googly — changing the name would entail an EGM and sending letters to shareholders which would cost ₹5 lakh, a sum the company did not want to spend. When Devarajan told Tata this, the latter was flummoxed and said it could borrow the sum from Tata Industries, but Devarajan dug his heels in and said the company did not want to borrow any more. Ultimately, Tata respected the decision and Tata Elxsi it remained.

Devarajan weaves in a lot of anecdotes and descriptive stories which add to the readability of the book. The author brings in a lot of drama into his narration which adds to the pace of the book, except where he delves into describing the tech which Tata Elxsi was involved in which makes it a bit academic and slows it down. But that bit is only a short spurt before the author resumes his story-telling narrative style. A chapter on the development of Maya, an animation software, for Apple’s Mac, and how it even wowed Steve Jobs, makes for engrossing reading.

Especially interesting is a chapter on FC Kohli, where Devarajan writes about his vision, his eccentricities, his love for jazz, his curt and strict demeanour, which conceals warmth and affection. Kohli would host lunch for the Tata Elxsi board and if it was mango season, he would slice Dussehri mangoes personally with the precision of a surgeon for all the guests. Now, which company chairman would slice mangoes for the board?

While Devarajan moved on from Tata Elxsi in 2001 to head Cisco Systems and later be on his own, the company he headed went on to scale greater heights and is now a profitable, niche tech company in the Tata group’s fold. A tale well told.

The reviewer is a senior journalist

Published on May 31, 2026