Gunjan Bagla

Bagla was born and raised in India. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (which was established under a US Agency for International development program called the Kanpur Indo-American Program or KIAP) for his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, and then received his MBA with honours from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois. He began his career working for Larsen & Toubro, an engineering, construction, and manufacturing company headquartered in Mumbai with major operations in Bangalore. He later worked in the United States as a director of program management for Tandon, a California computer manufacturing company with global operations in Singapore, India, Austria and elsewhere.

The headquarters of the Asia Society in New York City.

Bagla currently lives in the United States and teaches business seminars for industry executives at the California Institute of Technology and UCLA Extension.[1] He is a member of the Asia Society and a Charter Member of the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).[2] The South Asia Studies Association inducted him to their board of directors in 2010.

He appeared on Fox Business New,"Breakfast with Money" following the tragic incidents in Mumbai in November 2008. In connection with US President Barack H. Obama's visit to India in November 2010, Gunjan was interviewed twice by the BBC, on World News and on "The Hub with Nik Gowing". He was also interviewed by Bloomberg Television during the same time.

In 2004 Bagla started Amritt Ventures, a consulting firm based in the Los Angeles area; he currently acts as its managing director. The stated purpose of the company is to aid North American and European firms in becoming familiar with routine Asian business practices, and specifically in marketing their products to India and China, both of which are BRIC countries. Amritt provides its clients with training workshops on topics like human resources issues in India, the financial and legal environment, and Indian culture.[3]

Notable clients of Amritt include Kraft Foods, Raytheon, Trijicon, Clorox, Johnson & Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, Burt's Bees and Vivendi.[4]

Bagla's book Doing Business in 21st Century India was released by Business Plus, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in July 2008. The book is a guide for North American and European investors and entrepreneurs on doing business in modern India. The book was released to highly positive reviews; Jagdish Sheth, the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University, commented that it was "an excellent practical guide,"[5] while R. Gopalakrishnan of the Tata Group called it "a refreshingly simple book on a very complex subject."[5] Doing Business in 21st Century India has earned five-star reviews from several of Amazon.com's top reviewers and Vine Voices.

Bagla also writes articles on global business, particularly on the ties between the United States and India.[6] His writings have appeared in a number of different business magazines, including the Indian publications Dataquest and Businessworld and the American publications Daily Variety, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Business Pundit, and CIO. He has also written for the website MarketingProfs.

Bagla has operated a blog called The India Expert since July 2008.

The Harvard Business Review published an article co-authored by Prof Vijay Govindarajan and Bagla entitled "How Big Companies Beat Local Competition in Emerging Markets " in August 2012 which was among the most commented pieces of the summer on the HBR website

In 2007 Bagla was interviewed by Gamasutra, a video-game development website, about the impact the release of the Xbox 360 would have on the Indian gaming market. Bagla remarked that "most mainstream American [game] titles can translate well into the Indian market"; he went on to list Quake, Counter-Strike, and Age of Empires as some of the most successful titles.[7]

In 2008 the Los Angeles Times interviewed Bagla about the impending purchase of DreamWorks by Anil Ambani, an Indian business magnate and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Bagla compared Ambani to "Rockefeller, Bill Gates and Howard Hughes."[8] Bagla was also interviewed by BusinessWeek following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, commenting on the effect the attacks could have on foreign business in India.[9]

Bagla has also been interviewed in The Wall Street Journal and India Journal.

In April 2010, Bagla was the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the South Asian Studies Association, held at the University of Southern California. His topic was "Globalization: India and the US."[10]

In September 2010 he was invited to speak at the University of Michigan Ross Business School India Conference in memory of the recently deceased Professor C. K. Prahalad.

In October 2010 Business Week published a new article by Bagla, where he asserted that American exports to India could rise from the current $18 billion to perhaps $80 billion in five years.

• Business process outsourcing in India
• Globalisation in India
• International business

• Bagla's blog, The India Expert
• Bagla on Twitter
• Business Pundit interview with Bagla
• Why U.S.-India Ties Require Patience, Spur Hopes – a Business Week article by Bagla
• Amazon.com profile for Doing Business in 21st Century India
• "NPR Station KCRW Radio Interviews Gunjan Bagla about President Obama's impending arrival in Mumbai"
• Harvard Business Review article on Multinationals and Innovation from India