You just cannot afford to miss this Uday Kotak lesson on entrepreneurship

Banker Uday Kotak Tuesday exhorted entrepreneurs to be mindful of ethics, integrity and governance as they go about building companies. The comments from Kotak, who has been appointed by government to help steer the crippled infra lender IL&FS out of difficulties, came while stressing on the need for entrepreneurs to be thorough professionals.

"You need to be creative, passion-oriented, purposeful and finally have a sense of professionalism, ethics, integrity, and of governance which are the bedrocks of sustainable entrepreneurship," Kotak said. It can be noted that after IL&FS, which owes over Rs 94,000 crore to lenders, has defaulted and eventually led to government superseding the board, the infra lender was found to be wanting in governance practices, with allegations levelled against the top leadership.

To start with, there was a complex maze of companies- 348 to be precise--and then there were borrowings between the group firms as well. Speaking at an entrepreneur award function by consultancy firm EY, Kotak said apart from the need for entrepreneurs to be good professionals, there is also a need for them to imbibe entrepreneurial spirit.

He said within Kotak Mahindra Bank they have coined a phrase called 'professional entrepreneurs' to ensure this. Kotak urged all the entrepreneurs to ensure that they are ready for any change, disruption and dare to be different. Citing the case of Azim Premji, who won the lifetime achievement award, Kotak said Wipro dared to be different which saw it move into technology from being an oil company.

Addressing the event, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said a lot of changes have happened in the past few years like the introduction of GST and a bankruptcy code, which are transformative and asked businesses to seize the opportunity presented by the same.