Leadership is about people knowing where you stand: Ambareesh Murty, Founder, Pepperfry

My First Year at Work

The brief I was given and what I did in the first 100 days at work

MY FIRST JOB out of campus was with Cadbury. My stint as a management trainee there involved assignments across various functions, and it was here that I began appreciating the value of being a general manager and donning multiple hats. My first assignment was to support the brand manager for Perk, apart from converting paper ledgers into five-year sales data on Excel—this taught me the value of grunt work. I also learnt to handle road shows and organised a rock concert for a youth brand.

The worst mistake I made

A MISTAKEN ASSUMPTION that I learnt from was that more money spent on marketing can’t take care of lack of value delivery or product differentiation. I have tried to always remember this and, therefore, differentiation is one of the pillars on which Pepperfry stands tall today

The best leadership lessons I learnt

I LEARNT THAT leadership isn’t about the number of degrees you have or where you studied; it’s about how well you understand the circumstances of people you work with and how much you can empathise with them. It’s about whether you can put a stake in the ground based on your convictions, which tells everyone where you stand on fundamental values and principles. I learnt that leadership isn’t about people agreeing with what you do, it is about them knowing where you stand.

How I had fun at work

MY WORK PLACE was like a second home — perhaps a first home, given the time I spent in office, and I had a great time at work. Table tennis, latenight parties with other management trainees, and just the act of learning new things made work thoroughly enjoyable.


How I managed my work-life balance

I DIDN’T MANAGE work-life balance and guess haven’t learnt to. I put in 12- to 14-hour days and used to work most weekends and holidays. I think my first vacation was when I took a couple of days off to get married about five years into work. I know this might not sound fashionable but the truth is that I continue to not be a fan of having a great work-life balance, and I guess this also reflects in the intense work culture at Pepperfry.

My biggest innovation

DURING MY STINT at Cadbury, I was assigned to supply chain, especially the Cadbury cocoa operations in Kerala. Life in Kerala was very different from the corporate world in Mumbai. I conceptualised and put in place a multi-point purchase supply chain to collect cocoa from farmers across Kerala — this was a radical departure from how Cadbury used to do things.