Ramesh Nair - the suave, tech-savvy and relatively young entrant to India’s elite corps of chief executives, now CEO and Country Head at JLL India, has his roots in Kerala.
Nair's parents are based in Chengannur and he did his schooling at Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Kochi.
Nair’s 17-year long journey with JLL India began as an analyst at the firm's Chennai office. From this entry-level position to the top slot, Nair has risen through the ranks with an unwavering focus on his and his teams' performance.
The ride to the top post of the country's largest and leading International Property Consultancy (IPC) was not an easy one.
“Quick decision-making is invaluable in business. There are challenging times when very tough business decisions have to be made - for the Indian real estate industry, one such period was the one that came on the heels of the GFC (global financial crisis),” shares Nair, who was then managing the Firm's key South Indian markets and the pan-India industrial business.
Unlike the blink-and-miss impact of 9/11 which occurred when the Indian real estate market was small, the post-GFC impact on this industry was much worse as it had scaled up considerably. Such was the effect that Nair's own career appeared to have sunk into limbo.
However, he decided to face the professional and business crisis head on, and among his first decisions was narrowing his focus on potentially highly profitable segments to gain market share for JLL India, while moving away from the lesser profitable ones.
Nair feels that it is important at such times for such a large firm to stay focused on improving productivity as also centralizing decision-making so that strategies can be tweaked and results measured.
He feels his middle-class upbringing has taught him the importance of focus, hard work, discipline and humility.
As Nair steps into his new role at the helm of JLL India, he will strive to drive its emergence as an even more people-oriented professional organization, which will also add a ‘cool’ quotient to the company’s employer branding efforts.
Nair's wife, Supriya, works at Deutsche Bank and they have a 12-year-old daughter, Anagha.