AGENTS OF CHANGE: PRAMOD SAXENA

Pramod Saxena has been a key executive in the field of cellular mobile telephony since the beginning of this phenomenally growing segment. He was instrumental in establishing the telecom business of Essar Group, a diversified business conglomerate with interests in sectors spanning telecom, shipping, steel, oil & gas etc.

He successfully led the formation of Essar Group’s joint venture with Swisscom Group, Switzerland’s CHF9.7 billion telecom company and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, Hong Kong based diversified business group.

Pradeep started his entrepreneurial career with his new company called India Prepaid Services Pvt. Ltd. The company offers services branded as Oxigen that enables quick electronic recharge of pre-paid mobiles. Oxigen has a countrywide network of 17,000 sales points with executives equipped with hand terminals installed at shops, petrol pumps, cafes etc.

The business has grown to about $65 million (Rs. 300 crore) in a short span, and Saxena is hopeful to take this figure to about $150 million (Rs. 700 crore) by March 2007.

Now, Pradeep is looking to expand the prepaid model to other areas like Direct to Home Television (DTH), cable, prepaid computing, and utilities such as power and gas. He has also formed a subsidiary called Oxigen Infovision to focus on value added services for mobile phones. Citigroup, a global financial conglomerate has recently acquired a 30% stake in Oxigen.