The country manager of EBay India, the local arm of the international online retail and auction giant, prevented me from paying any attention whatsoever to an India TV breaking news special that played out on the big screen behind him—for the entire hour and a half that we spent over lunch at the Spaghetti Kitchen in the Phoenix Mills compound in Lower Parel, Mumbai.
That’s because Ambereesh Murty, who took over as country head six months ago, is like the guy in the college canteen with all the good stories. You are mainly there for the experience, and the soft drink.
Earlier, when Murty walks in for our meeting, he spots me in a ground-floor corner of the large, bright and airy Italian restaurant and summons me to follow him upstairs. I ask if he has a favourite table. The EBay India office is in the same complex and Murty no doubt has eaten at the restaurant several times.
“No, no. They let you smoke upstairs,” he says as he bounds up the glass-bannistered staircase.
We are ushered to a table just underneath the afore-mentioned TV screen, and Murty promptly orders two portions of garlic bread with cheese.
“Whoever was the guy who first decided to pair cheese with bread...sheer genius, I tell you!” Murty quips as he lights up the first of the three or four cigarettes that punctuate our lunch.
Past perfect: Murty hopes to one day sign up for a full-time programme in history and archaeology.
Murty took over as head of EBay India in March, when his predecessor, Rajan Mehra, left. Mehra moved on to venture capital firm Clearstone Venture Advisors in August. Incidentally, Mehra’s move was just the latest in a series of senior management moves from EBay India to private equity and venture capital firms—Mehra was the fourth. I ask Murty about this trend. Why is EBay India such a rich poaching ground?
Partly, Murty explains, it’s because they were all pioneers in the Internet business. Any fund that wanted to make and manage investments in online businesses swooped on veteran EBay hands. “And then, we’ve always had very entrepreneurial guys as heads,” Murty adds.
As the waiter brings him a green lime ice-cream soda and me a cold coffee, Murty tells me about his family. His father worked in Indian Airlines while his mother was a scientist. “A plant pathologist with the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, to be precise,” Murty says.
There are no awkward pauses or protocol-laden small talk. I ask a question and Murty launches into an answer, accompanied by expansive hand movements.
Murty went straight from engineering college to business school, and then joined Cadbury India as a management trainee. Starting as a “sales guy”, he was soon asked to lead a newly formed new business development team. Murty goes quiet when I ask him to name a few hits and misses from those days. While thinking, he meticulously stirs soda water into his ice-cream soda.