Hari Nair
Chief Executive Officer RNA Builders (NG)
In an open C-Suite
Hari Nair begins his day early with a prayer as a devotee to Krishna. He believes there is no better way to make all tough jobs pleasant than laying all challenges and obstacles at the feet of the Lord’s feet.
The performance of a Chief Executive depends on how well he knits his network and uses the company’s talents to hammer out all challenges. The broad vision of the chief of executives, engineers and workers alone cannot drive an institution through the fast-changing time. One’s leadership quality works only with a deeper understanding of the organisation’s business nature, legacies, internal weakness and market potential.
An officer occupying the C-Suite must do his homework well before setting up a well-binding team that can sync with the top and bottom of the hierarchy and make it work on the ground. Hari Nair possessed this quality to jostle himself to the position of Chief Executive Officer of RNA Builders (NG), a big name in the real estate market of Mumbai. On the day of the interview for the post of CEO, Narendra Gupta expected him to be an officer with integrity and aggressive selling. “I need time,” he responded. Hari Nair knew that he did not have enough with him to offer everything outright. Hari Nair joined RNA Builders (NG) in 2000, determined to turn it into a professional organisation beyond being a mere home builder. He had, in his hand, enough confidence and determination to work on a task assigned to him. The company was then a small company with a lean workforce. “I work with a feeling that it is my company that gives me everything including challenges to face,” he avers.
In real estate markets like Mumbai’s, challenges are unpredictable at three levels, the obstructive local tough-nuts, too many players with too many inventories and price fluctuation. Since the turnaround time is longer for large housing projects, anything can happen before the completion of the project. A home builder has to be cautious about the trial phase. However, a developer with a long-term inventory holding capacity sails through all tough times. Since the real estate business is a long-term deal for professional developers, nursing brand equity and building trust are also important. It requires extraordinary project execution skills, timely completion, lots of homework and groundwork, everything to cheer its customer’s lifetime and a team of workers with a sense of belonging. “These have been my areas of focus since the beginning. Incidentally, the promoter has given me enough freedom and challenges to perform, which has instilled in me a sense of extra dutifulness,” he says.
RNA Builders (NG) is always tireless and invulnerable to a recession. The real estate market has ever since seen three major crises coinciding with dropping prices like ninepins. Always a zero debt company RNA Builders (NG) had nothing to worry about the price drop and demand fall. Its development strategies had an agile bandwidth to cope with every crisis, he says while praising Narendra Gupta, the chief promoter of the company. RNA always keeps a contingency plan with resources to hold inventory until the market rebounds. “Executives only need to do their parts religiously. The rest RNA takes care of,” says Hari Nair.
RNA has the history of three entrepreneurs – Roshan Lal, Narendra and Anil – coming together to contribute their first letter to name it RNA. The group had its maiden project in Bhandup, a central suburb of Mumbai in 1979. It is the pioneer in building malls, the first being the Shopping Arcade at Mumbai’s landmark Lokhandwala Complex, commissioned in 1988, though RNA is majorly into residential projects. His commercial engagement never stopped him from being philanthropic. Awards and accolades are approval of his performance as a business executive. A long list of charity works has been self-gratifying. Some are ever memorable.
Six tribal villages of Wada, near Mumbai, had no drop of water to drink. Tribal women used to bring water headloads six kilometres away daily. That was heartbreaking news for Hari Nair. The misery of the tribal population touched his heart. He moved quickly and promised the Swami at Chinmaya Mission Centre Vasai, who sought his help to solve the acute water crises the tribal villages suffered. He arranged resources to dig a bore well and provided water connections so all the villagers could tap drinking water. “I saw bliss on their faces,” he recalls.
The streets around Tata Memorial Cancer Centre in Mumbai are unstoppably dense with patients coming in from faraway places. Most of them are poor with no resources to afford a rented room. They linger on the street for many weeks while undergoing tiresome treatments and straining medical tests. The mind-boggling scene on the street melts even the hardest of minds. But compassionate minds need sufficient means and endurance to support them for a long time. Though it is difficult for one to help those hundreds of ill-fated families with everything they want, each one chipping in with what is affordable periodically will take care of at least a fraction of their burden. Hari Nair thought of doing at least something for them – roughly 600 families – from within his capacity. His team supports the impoverished cancer victims toiling on the street to get a decent breakfast with packaged drinking water on the first Tuesday of every month.
Hari Nair has a long list of philanthropic works in many remote villages, where people had no access to water, healthcare, proper food and clothing. His team ran camps for eye and health check-ups bringing medical teams and medicine along in many remote villages. Besides, he distributed clothes, school bags, books and accessories to many school-going children in remote villages.
Before coming to Mumbai in 1992 in search of a job, Hari Nair completed graduation in Economics and a Diploma in Civil Engineering, a rare combination of education. He also holds an MBA from Calicut University. His first job was in the Indian Navy, in a civilian role, where he did not find any growth opportunities. Salary and space for survival were not the lone consideration. He explored something that demanded his passion for engineering and management. Job in Our Town, a real estate company, was his first break into real estate, a job that justified his civil engineering diploma. After five years in Our Town and six months after marriage in 1998, he joined Warba Insurance Company, Kuwait. For business, he travelled a lot between Kuwait and Bahrain.
The successful career with handsome remuneration, however, did not satisfy him as he felt his wings were clipped. His wife Rajeshwari (Raji) was employed in Reliance at that time. “Even now I refuse to reminisce about my six months abroad on the insurance job. That was so unmentionable in my otherwise delightful career history,” he reminisces. He realised that his job abroad was a spoiler of family life. He and his wife preferred a better life in India itself. Soon he returned home and relaxed for two months before his job hunt began. In the interim, he joined Sheth Developers and worked there for a brief period. Soon he joined RNA, where he found better comfort. At RNA he created an organisational structure acceptable to the chairman because of its conventional contortion independent from the software-driven framework that the old generation is not savvy with.
In 2008, he left RNA to cool the heat he gathered after a spectacular performance. “That was like leaving a home where I had planted my heart,” he recalls. As he stumbled upon a job in Marg Constructions Ltd, a GRK Reddy group company, in Chennai, his wife also found it a good chance to have the convenience of visiting native homes on weekends. The job helped him learn a lot as he got exposure to the Singapore market and China’s SEZ model. But RNA did not want him to stay away from it. One day, Arora, a senior officer at RNA visited him in Chennai to persuade him to return to Mumbai. Hari Nair reciprocated with a weekend visit to RNA and after some time, he gave himself into the persuasion and returned in 2009 to the S-Suite he left a year ago. “If everything goes well, the chairman relieves me, I may seek retirement at the age of 55,” he says.
In 15 years, RNA has moved up as per its plans with many awards and accolades, commanding brand respect in the real estate market by building homes for celebrities at one end and the middle class at the other end. “I received 15 awards, which include national and international awards on behalf of RNA,” he says. Hari Nair himself got four awards on the merit of his performance and contribution to the society and real estate industry. It moves with well-calculated plans and a strong resilience to soak up even unforeseen aberrations. RNA has a land bank for construction over the next 15 years, 400 employees and a track record of building over 10 million square feet. At present, it is working on the development of 3.5 million sq ft.
The sky’s the limit for one who does business with ethics and integrity. Changing India is bringing more exciting times. While bad time is a learning time, good time is an earning time. Miscalculation teaches where mathematics goes wrong. That makes Hari Nair move cautiously and plan everything with sagacity. “God blesses me with goodness to make all my plans meticulous,” he remembers the Almighty with gratitude.
Hari Nair’s elder son Vishnu, who holds an MSC in industrial psychology, works in JLL and his younger son Jishnu is a student.
