Ravindra Simhambhatla on business leadership
From Discovering Passion Beyond Code with Ravi Simhambhatla of Avis Budget Group | Indianness Ep.14 · · The Indianness Podcast
“Richard Branson comes across as very friendly people close to he's still a businessman and he's been very successful and you can look at all the all the companies he's run or that have a virgin brand associated with them they are nothing to write home about their revenues and traffics they don't make much that's the of the world but Richard Bron has made a lot of Mone okay so he's very smart he's a people person very very smart and a very astute business person he licenses his brand and and and so you've got to learn from that right how did he how did he arrive at that that magical moment say okay I'm Richard Branson I started off with Virgin Records I disrupted music in the United Kingdom United Kingdom music was like deeply eded when the I would say in the Legacy Branson comes and disrupts that then he starts wooding Atlantic he disrupts air travel yeah he he getes an experience like none other so if you flew British Airways or Virgin Atlantic You' be F completely different worlds um then he he disrupted music virgin music tried to disrupt trains virgin trains and then he came to the point where said I want to disrupt Airlines and aviation in in America but my humble opinion of that disrup Virgin America and America was less about Branson's I would say professional strengths in running Airlines and more about the brand now if you're a brand new Airline coming up in Circa 2005 2006 and you want you have to break through the blast you have the United the Deltas the Americans the Continentals all flying high how break through that you have an American brand that's that's frally created to try and break through that everyone's going to laugh at you but if you have Richard Branson and virgin group written through that everyone sudden gets very serious because he's done it before so I think that's how he was used”
On , Ravindra Simhambhatla, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital & Innovation Officer at AVIS BUDGET GROUP INC, spoke about business leadership during Discovering Passion Beyond Code with Ravi Simhambhatla of Avis Budget Group | Indianness Ep.14 on The Indianness Podcast.
About Ravindra Simhambhatla
In a September 2024 podcast appearance, Ravindra Simhambhatla discussed his career journey, including his roles at Virgin America, Tesla, and Avis Budget Group. He described Elon Musk as "the most determined human being I have ever encountered" and said Musk "never asked people to do what he was not ready to do himself." Simhambhatla also characterized Richard Branson as "a very astute business person" who licenses his brand. He reflected on his early struggles as a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he said he was "physically sick and mentally despondent" before transferring to Richmond College in London, where he graduated with the best performance medal in computer science. Simhambhatla emphasized the importance of mentoring, stating that "people in positions of power should" mentor the next generation and that mentoring allows one to "pay forward" knowledge. He said he mentors both within his corporate roles and informally, adding that "if you don't bring new people into the fold mentoring them, then you also can never rise up." He advised that people should "work hard, listen to understand not to respond, be humble," and "have fun in life," adding that if an activity does not make one smile "once or twice a day," one should "probably do something else."