In early 2000, when I was posted to NIIT Dubai, Iran was practically a country out of bounds for a Corporate to penetrate - lack of information & data, huge language barrier, laws of repatriation of funds irregular, travel & visa difficult, no copyright laws, no mobile operators, poor internet connectivity; under these circumstances, I challenged myself and requested my organisation to allow me to test the waters. I felt that such a huge population and such a young population, IT education was bound to work. And it did. We eventually opened 13 NIIT Franchise Centres in all the major cities in Iran.

After being privileged for 7 years within a structured setup wherein you have various internal support services like Finance, HR, Marketing, Strategy, Corporate Communications, Travel Desk etc…. to aid you in your role and assignments – I was posted (Sept 1998- Jan 2000) to establish the NIIT business in Windhoek, Namibia which exposed me to the workings and culture in Southern Africa. This was hugely challenging because all decisions were to be made by me. From selection of staff, hardware, furniture, training the staff on NIIT’s methodology, processes, operations to Sales, Marketing, promotions, Advertising and Business Development – I had to handle it all. by the end of my tenure I left behind a fully staffed, trained and functional centre.