Suzlon Energy Ltd founder and chairman Tulsi Tanti's sudden demise has shaken the renewable energy industry. Colleagues and competitors have paid rich tributes to the "wind man of India", who they hailed as the pioneer of clean energy in the country.
Sumant Sinha, founder, chairman and managing director of ReNew Power, shared how Tanti motivated him to join the renewable energy sector. Sinha, who served as the chief operating officer of Suzlon Energy in 2008-2010, pay his tribute to Tanti:
I was working with the Aditya Birla Group and I had no real reason to leave. I met Tulsi Bhai in September 2007 after he reached out through colleagues. He had a vision and a view of how he thought the future for wind energy would turn out. He was a real evangelist at the time who almost single-handedly created the wind industry in India through all the entrepreneurial efforts that he put in over many years.
He convinced me to join the exciting new industry with the vision he painted of it. That's how I joined Suzlon and that's why I got into the clean energy industry.
Also read: Tulsi Tanti: The wind whisperer who battled storms
I joined Suzlon in August 2008 and a month after that Lehman Brothers collapsed and we were hit by the financial crisis. Many things were happening at the same time and liquidity was getting sucked out of the markets; it was a very uncertain time for Suzlon.
Around that time, Tulsi bhai decided that he had to have a stronger role in the company—his baby—during the difficult time. He tried to nurture the company and do whatever he could to get the company back in good shape. We did debt restructuring at the time. The couple of years that I worked with him were very turbulent in the company's history.
Leaving Tulsi bhai and Suzlon wasn’t easy but we parted ways amicably. For around six months after stepping down, I continued to be an adviser to Suzlon.
When I started ReNew Power and told Tulsi bhai, he was very proactively supportive. He always had a very strong desire to foster entrepreneurship. ReNew did its first 25-megawatt project in Gujarat with Suzlon.
In fact, Tulsi bhai and team were very helpful and he always ensured that ReNew was given the best input and service. When we commissioned our first project in April 2012, Tulsi bhai was there when the Prime Minister inaugurated it.
He was a person who got a lot of people into the industry with his passion, dedication and commitment. The excitement with which he painted the vision of a sustainable and green future motivated others.
Suzlon was the first company in the renewable energy sector and a lot of people who are now veterans in the industry started their journey from Suzlon.
So many renewable energy professionals got their first break from Tulsi bhai, learnt from his leadership and were mentored by him in some way or the other. When he offered help, it was not just lip service, he was genuinely concerned. He was a father figure to many.
Another thing to note about him was that he had a strong connection with people and went out of his way to look after them. He had this very strong bonding capability with people and there was genuine humanity to him, which is not that common.
He was always full of life and brimming with ideas and that’s why it is harder to accept he is no longer with us. He was always smiling and cheerful, even when we knew that he was going through a lot of difficulty.
He was always calm and never let people see his struggles. He would often tell me "you can not let your work impact your outlook on life". In retrospect, maybe he was internalising all that stress. His demise is a big loss to his family, the Suzlon family and the entire wind energy industry.
The one thing that I learnt from his leadership was the ability to get people to support you passionately in executing your vision. I have tried to imbibe that but I can’t say I fully learnt his secret. I guess now we will never know.
(As told to Rachita Prasad)
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