Profile - Vikram Malhotra: "I love movies, which is why I'm here"

Malhotra dabbled in aircrafts and Formula One racing before moving on to head the business at Balaji Motion Pictures

When Vikram Malhotra walked into Balaji Motion Pictures to assume the role of chief operating officer, he came with a surprisingly varied bag of experiences. Lubricants, FMCG, spirits, airlines and Formula One racing are some of the fields in which he has worked in the past. A look at the man himself:

Earlier, Malhotra was head, marketing, Kingfisher Airlines. However, his journey with the UB Group actually started in mid 2003, when he joined the sales team of Triumph Distillers and Vintners.

In early 2005, Malhotra received a call from the then president of the UB Group, informing him that Vijay Mallya would like him to move to the airlines business. In four days, Malhotra was handling the marketing duties of the airline that was to be started by the group.

During his four year stint with Kingfisher Airlines, Malhotra played a major role in the growth of the domestic airline and also the launch of Kingfisher Airlines International.

He has had his share of tough times, with the airlines industry grappling with issues such as rising fuel prices, high input costs and high taxation battles.

"Marketers tend to distance themselves as individuals and leaders from the challenge that they are fighting in the market. My team at Kingfisher firmly believed that the brand we had was superior and that we wouldn't compromise on the promises that we had made to our customers when we set out," says Malhotra.

Kingfisher also bought over the Spyker Formula One team in 2007 and rebranded it as Force India. It also took over the reins at the low cost carrier, Air Deccan, in 2007. Malhotra was responsible for Force India and the imprint that the team would create in India. F1 was targeted at the unassuming Indian who wasn't necessarily a fan of racing. However, it seems to be catching on.

Hailing from Jaipur, Malhotra graduated from the University of Rajasthan and moved to Mumbai to complete management studies from the Mumbai University in 1999. He began his career with FCB Ulka (now Draft FCB Ulka) as a management trainee. In his first year, Malhotra worked on the Castrol account. He worked so closely with the brand that it was a joke within the agency that he was more of a management trainee for Castrol than FCB Ulka.

Subsequently, Malhotra was shifted to the Lever Johnson (now SC Johnson) account. Later, he moved to SC Johnson and worked on the sales and distribution team for the household products. "It gave me a robust and accelerated learning in the field of sales and distribution early on in my career," he reveals.

Next, Malhotra joined Tata Communications, then known as Tata VSNL, in 2003. He was the brand manager at a time when the company was consolidating its businesses under the Indicom brand. After a brief stint of five months at the organisation, he joined the UB Group.

But isn't the motion pictures business an entirely different game from his earlier ventures? "Well - I love movies. Also, the challenge here is exciting," he adds. Malhotra looks forward to building the studio brand and creating a successful business model.

A national level tennis player in his youth, Malhotra had originally wanted to take up the game as a professional. However, making a career out of sports wasn't the best option back then, he says. However, he loses no chance to apply what he learnt in sports to management.

"The fundamentals remain the same, no matter what business you apply it to," states the 34 year old. "You need a plan before you get on court and then you have to be agile and innovative enough to adapt the plan to the game that is going on."

(Profile is a regular column which peeps into the career paths of senior advertising, media and marketing professionals who are currently in the news.)