Remembering Arun Kumar

Arun Kumar, President and MD, Flextronics Software, and a great inspiration for the techpreneur community in India/US passed away in San Diego, USA on July 7, 2006. While the details of how a routine checkup, and an angioplasty became a threat to his life are still unclear, it just reminds us how fragile life really is.
Arun in the last 8 years that I’ve known him has epitomised the spirit that drives innovation and excellence in the Indian IT, or should I say the Innovation Economy.

Having worked with him closely on path breaking initiatives between 1998 and 2004 such as the HSS IPO- India’s first book built offer, the setting up and closure of RightServe, one of India’s first online advertising units, the telecom downturn and finally revival through the acquisition of Lucent’s global GSM operations, not to mention, the years of transition at Nasscom, between Dewang’s sudden departure and finding Kiran Karnik, I had come to admire the humility, depth of knowledge, and the disarming charm that came from human decency, fairness, personal integrity, and a fantastic sense of humor.

I’m sure a number of the readers and posters on this forum knew him as well as he was closely associated with the tech entrepreneural movement that started with TiE, and has now become the Band of Angels. You could leave your comments on www.hssworld.com or post them here, I’ll link it to a site – Remembering Arun – that is being constructed as an online tribute to the man and his work.

Here’s praying that his spirit eggs us on take entrepreneurship to more facets of the Innovation Economy.
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