Bizread

In 2010, Girish Mathrubootham left a cushy, well-paying job and founded Freshworks (then Freshdesk) to create a better way to service customers. What began as a single product is now a company that operates in 13 global locations to deliver a comprehensive suite of products to more than 70,000 clients worldwide. Girish takes the readers through his growing-up years in Trichy to arriving in Chennai after his engineering degree. He opens up about his early entrepreneurial failures, the challenges of being a software engineer in the US and the learnings he took from mentors like Kumar Vembu at Zoho.

FOBs (family-owned businesses) account for two-thirds of publicly traded companies in India and deliver shareholder returns twice as high as their non-family counterparts. However, sustaining this success is no easy feat. So, what sets the successful ones apart? A strong culture, good governance and a focus on value creation, professionalism and transparency. In contrast, internal family politics, gender bias and succession disputes have derailed many promising legacies. In this book, corporate adviser and strategic counsel Dr Srinath Sridharan explains the art and science of succession planning.