Saturday 4 April 2015

Joshipura-A proactive PRO with learning mindset

Kashyap Joshipura
This week our friend Kashyap Joshipura was in Ahmedabad. I met him almost after a year. No doubt we have infrequent teletalks as he is posted in Assam for last two years. He has recently been promoted as Chief Manager Corporate Communications ONGCL, something not many know here.
He is the same Kashyap who was quite friendly with media when he was posted in Ahmedabad. His health has improved a lot because of natural and lesser polluted air of Assam!.

Time stands still as he starts engaging conversation. After the recent meeting, I can confidently claim that I can deliver a small interesting lecture about Assam and can easily visit Assam with friendly tips of Kashyap. He belongs to Saurashtra region and I was quite surprised that a journalist in Joshipura found Gujarat and Saurashtra in Assam.

He told about Nagaras( big drums in temples) in Assam which are from Jasdan and ice gola (favourite candy of many in summer)making machines which are from Rajkot. In the same breath he told how similar were some dialect of language of Assam with Kathiawadi (Gujarati of Saurashtra).
He also brought a copy of publication of Union of journalists of Assam. I will write about the publication sometime later. Presently it is all about Kashyap.
As the business world is becoming more competitive with more and more people trying to catch attention of target audience through fast growing multimedia platform, A good PR or CC man has to be pro-active and always in a learning mode.
It is not an exaggeration that Kashyap Joshipura , CC man of Navratna, ONGCL, possess both these qualities besides many others to have a kind of emotional balance with media and his own PR fraternity along with right professional relationship.
He is of the breed that has good exposure of news media which makes the task of a CC Man smooth, easy and effective. Armed with PG degrees in Journalism and Public Relations, his initial career in 1980 was with English newspaper Times of India and Gujarati newspaper, Gujarat Samachar. Both are still leading newspapers of Gujarat in their segment.
 Though a graduate with English literature, he has been successful in a highly technical organization, the ONGCL, only because of his pro active approach and a learning mind set.
His first encounter with PR was with Rajkot Municipal Corporation where he was the first PRO. This being quite traditional set up sticking to hierarchical structure, probably gave him first set of challenge to redefine the PR work in terms of modern corporate communication.
In ONGCL, he started his career with Eastern Region with base at Calcutta, now known as Kolkata and later worked in Mumbai in Maharashtra and Vadodara and Ahmedabad in Gujarat before being posted in East again.

And he has good knowledge of Bangla, Marathi and he is learning Assamese at the fag end of his career. Besides, his mother tongue Gujarati, he has good command over English, Hindi and Urdu- certainly a skill that deserves adjective – polyglot.

Relations with hometown or mother tongue are two best known factors helping develop effective relationships- both personal and professional. And his knowledge of many languages holds key for his success.
His knowledge of Marathi helped him have a Marathi girl as his life partner when he was posted in Mumbai. 
In Ahmedabad, he was very active with the activities of media whether it was a function of a newspaper or an event of the newly formed Gujarat Media Club. And as the latest conversation revealed, he is very active with journalists and journalists’ organisations in Assam.

Probably that is the reason that he leaves an indelible impression on people he meets in his personal and professional sphere.