Sandwiched between
two brothers, Anita has been a part of the company since its inception
and continues to play an important role on the sales side, with
the added job of raising her infant son.
Before call centers sprouted up across India, the Guptas were ready
to tap India’s potential. Anita says that traditional respect
for family and an elder brother’s leadership spurred the group.
The Guptas found a way to avoid the sibling rivalry and squabbles
that seem almost inherent in family businesses.
“After we started the business, we made a determined effort
to get along,” she says. “We agreed to some base rules
before [we] got started.”
For example, when starting the company, Anita and Neal followed
older brother Rakesh’s lead because he had the most experience
in business through his earlier jobs. As the company grew, each
sibling began to specialize, focusing on a single area. Anita zeroed
in on the production and sales as Rakesh focused on strategic initiatives
and Neal concentrated on the work in India.
Starting the company brought together the siblings, who had previously
spread out from their childhood home in Ohio. They chose the greater
Washington, D.C. area as the base of their business; they set up
an office in Falls Church, Virginia and launched their company.
“[Working together] really enabled us to
come together,” Anita says. “It was really nice. We’ve
become much closer.”
The bond of family was also strengthened by working
together. The siblings spent more time together, took vacations
together and even lived together when the business was just taking
off. Anita says the lines of communication are always open between
her and her brothers.
As a family, Anita and her brothers always maintained a strong
connection with India. Their father came to America soon after Indian
independence and their mother quickly followed. Anita’s maternal
grandfather was one of the first 100 citizens, part of a group of
Indians who became the introductory set of citizens from the newly
independent country decades ago.
Though she was born in America, Anita lived with her grandmother
in India until she was seven. Her grandfather had just passed away
and her mother was taking care of her older brother in the United
States. The family decided to have Anita stay in India, where she
enrolled in a private school. She moved back to the United States
with her grandmother and merged right into life in Marietta, Ohio
as a young girl.
“We were the only minority family in Marietta while we were
growing up,” Anita says about growing up in southeast Ohio.
She describes it as a pleasant place in a corner of Ohio that was
tucked next to West Virginia. The family even had to go out of the
state to get to the closest mall. Despite being minorities in the
community, Anita and her brothers enjoyed the benefits of a good
school system.
For a family that now works with textbooks, education has been
the unifying theme in their lives. Anita’s mother was a public
school teacher, and continues to teach in the Anacostia part of
Washington, D.C. Back in fifth grade, Anita had a very familiar
face in front of her own classroom–her mother. In fact, her
mother taught all of her children at different times of their lives.
“That was pretty odd,” Anita says, “She was stricter
with us than with the other kids.”
As a student, Anita was interested in becoming
a doctor, but then decided to do something different. She pursued
a bachelor’s degree in computer science at Marietta College
in Ohio. For Anita, computer science was very logical and came easily.
After graduation, she spent time in India. She later went to Harvard
University in preparation for the Sloane Fellowship, a program designed
to introduce minority students to the study of public policy. The
scholarship piqued her interest in the field and led her to enroll
in Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government;
in 1991, Anita earned her master’s degree in public policy.
While pursuing her master’s, Anita took a year off to work
on a very special family project–the launch of Techbooks.
The idea, which had been brewing for years, finally
came to fruition. The Gupta children’s father had once owned
a company that reprinted books in India, while they were growing
up. The siblings drew on the family’s background in books,
developing the concepts behind Techbooks. They established the company
in the United States and then began the printing in India almost
immediately. From the start, the Guptas aimed to make their business
a worldwide success.
Back in the days before cell phones and Blackberries,
Anita and her brothers were outsourcing publishing services to India.
Rakesh saw India’s large English-speaking population and technology-savvy
workforce as assets, and they started sending their projects overseas
in 1992. Neal was based in India for the first few years of the
company’s growth, to supervise overseas operations. In 1997,
the Guptas secured investments from private firms willing to put
money into the young company. Techbooks now boasts offices in Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, the United Kingdom and
Australia. Offices in New Delhi and Puna maintain the link between
the Guptas and India.
Techbooks has allowed Anita to keep a constant connection with
India, something she and her brothers had aimed to do. She visits
at least once a year and sometimes up to three or four times a year.
Outsourcing may have seemed like an oddity back
when the Guptas started, but it is the norm now, despite being a
hotbed of contention.
When it comes to this dispute, Anita thinks of the old adage “The
train’s left the station.” She says now that outsourcing
has become omnipresent, the trend will not backtrack. According
to Anita, it will only progress and expand; there’s no going
back. Anita adds that companies will continue to send business abroad,
and that nobody will try to stop it. Doing so would only make America
less competitive, she says. Techbooks in particular has not faced
a backlash as a result of outsourcing debates. The Guptas began
outsourcing before it became a business buzz word. By being ahead
of the curve, their company is in a unique place.
“It allows us to gain a leadership position,” she says.
But Anita knows the company won’t be sitting pretty. She
acknowledges that it takes constant effort to stay ahead of the
game, especially because outsourcing is so prevalent.
“People today start to take it for granted that you’re
working with India.”
While staying ahead of the competition keeps her busy at work,
her seven-month-old son Jai keeps her busy at home.
Anita looks to her supportive parents and a nanny to take care
of her son while she’s at work. It’s tough at times,
she says, but it’s rewarding. Anita says that having a child
has given her a different perspective on life.
Apart from work and family, Anita’s new passion
is sailing. She bought a 35-foot motor yacht in April, and she spends
a day a week charting the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers near Washington,
D.C. Though she’s still getting her sea legs on the boat,
which she dubbed “Bare Necessity,” she’s excited
about her new adventure at sea.
As for other young women entrepreneurs looking to chart their own
courses, Anita says the best way to succeed is to get as good of
an education as possible. “Build a strong base,” she
says.
Rohina is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland who's sadly adjusting to life after college.
This summer you can find her bylines in ABCDlady and in The Star-Ledger in New Jersey.
Back to Top
|
