When the Great People Manager Awards 2019 were announced in July of this year, there was a name that received standing ovation from the audience. Mr. Virendra D Sanghavi, Co-promoter and Managing Director of Aarvi Encon Limited, was the oldest entrepreneur to have been recognized as a great people leader. Aarvi Encon is an engineering and manpower outsourcing services company established in oil and gas, refinery, petrochemicals, cross-country pipeline, power, infrastructure and telecom sectors.
Great Manager Institute just released its report mentioning the core reasons behind Sanghavi’s selection. Here are some excerpts from different sections of the report by Great Manager Institute, “Virendra D. Sanghavi is one of the most inspirational entrepreneurs we have evaluated. He is known for youthful celebrations while maintaining the dignity and respect a leader of his stature commands. His practice of recommending different books in different sessions as per the context of the session makes these sessions even more enjoyable for the team. He has an ability to look at the minutest of details of a task while not hampering the empowerment of the task owner. He is a coach and a teacher even before he is a leader.”
As part of this Study of Great People Managers, Great Manager Institute takes both quantitative and qualitative feedback from the team members of the managers, besides taking direct inputs from the managers themselves. One of the anonymous feedbacks by a team member shows how a leader can be active on ground at the age of 75, “I was facing an issue where customer was not accepting some clauses in the agreement. Shri V. D. Sanghavi personally intervened, studied the case and guided me to either modify or remove those clauses in order to pave the way for further discussion.”
Mr. Sanghavi has not only led Aarvi Encon since more than 32 years, he has also been an active humanitarian and educationist. He has been a visiting lecturer of ICT (Institute of Chemical Technology), formerly, UDCT (University Department of Chemical Technology), his alma mater, teaching piping engineering, his favourite subject, to third year students. ICT counts Mukesh Ambani, chairman of the Reliance Industries, Padma Bhushan Bal Dattatreya Tilak, and Padma Vibhushan Raghunath Mashelkar as its notable alumni, besides Mr. Sanghavi. His desire to teach is also reflected in the way he nurtures his managers at Aarvi Encon.
Great People Manager Study claims to be India’s largest study on people managers. In 2019, it evaluated more than 5000 leaders to come up with its final list that was published in Forbes India. Registrations for the Great People Manager Study 2020 are now open.