Profile: Spirit Of Sportsmanship

Kavita Bhupathi Chadda is a very fit CEO. And when the company, Globosport, is a sports and entertainment outfit, Kavita makes for a good brand ambassador as well. The 38-year-old mother of a six-year-old daughter is in a comfortable space today — both personally and professionally. This was not always so, she candidly admits.

When Kavita joined Globosport in 2005, a company begun by her brother Mahesh Bhupathi, she had just come back from the US and was only 27 years old. Globosport itself was just three years old, but it was in a growth phase. Kavita loved her first assignment of being celebrity manager to rising tennis star Sania Mirza. It was around the time Sania was making it big and Kavita recalls logging in 20 calls a day for enquiries from brands to sign her on. Things changed five years later. Kavita had a baby and decided to take a longish break. Coming back to work was tough — juggling both work and baby after the break was a struggle. And then in 2009, the company hit rough weather when it saw an exodus of senior people, who also took a large chunk of Globosports’ business with them.

Hard Decisions
So when Kavita was elevated to CEO in 2011, what she inherited was a company, which was in the red. What Globosport had lost was a huge chunk of its celebrity management business with stars like Priyanka Chopra, Sania Mirza and Hrithik Roshan, to name a few. There were other business verticals like the infrastructure company her father had handed over to Globosport to grow, the tennis academies that Mahesh had kick-started, but it was the celebrity management that brought in the largest chunk of revenue to Globosport then. It was time to make some hard decisions.

So, from the eight verticals which the company had then, Kavita decided to exit the non-profitable ones including the beleaguered celebrity management. Up until 2009, Globosport had sought out brands for their clients, but now Kavita decided Globosport would represent the brands and not the stars. She began with only one brand — P&G. While taking a huge risk, as there was no one else in the space representing just brands, Kavita had turned adversity into opportunity. Of course, the market said it was because Globosport was left with no celebrities. Kavita didn’t care. She designed as she calls it, the few who were on their rolls. “At that time, it was a huge risk and we had just one client, P&G, but I had decided this was the only way forward,” says the MBA from North Carolina’s Wake Forest University. Kavita’s gut and marketing acumen is evident in the fact that today, the brands business brings in 70 per cent profit for Globosport.

On the personal front too, Kavita says, she has finally found the perfect balance between her work and being mom to her daughter. “I felt I was able to reprioritise my life and strike the right balance. Now I feel I can contribute positively, both as a mother and CEO,” says Kavita, adding that coming back to India was never in question. It was finally home, but she is emphatic to add, that she didn’t come back for Mahesh. “I came back for India. And what he offered was an opportunity,” says the self-assured Kavita.

Building Business
In the past six years, Kavita has grown and corporatised the infrastructure company handed over by her father. She has grown the tennis academies business and counts 36 such academies across India. And of course, the brands business is their flagship today. Other smaller verticals also were added on, like that of creating content and building IPR. Mahesh also got into films in a small way with Big Daddy Productions with wife Lara Datta, though his venture IPTL is a different business based out of Dubai. “What really excites me about this business is not that I watch sports — I live sports. I appreciate excellence in sports, and having seen my brother go through his journey close-up, this has helped as well. My education helped me package everything right while my future plans for Globosport including creating IPR and exclusive and marketable content,” says Kavita. Both brother and sister hold the majority stake in Globosport though Kavita would not say how much of a minority stake they have divested.

On gender issues, Kavita says she has probably been lucky. “There are times, like in certain meetings, where, to be honest, I have felt that the people I am speaking to would have preferred to have been discussing certain things with men,” says Kavita, shrugging her shoulders. Sometimes, in the spirit of sportsmanship, one just has to move on.