Gunjan Bagla is an Indian-American author, blogger, businessman, and public speaker. He is the founder and managing director of Amritt Ventures, a

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad rang ...

based in Malibu, California, and a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs.

Background and education

Bagla currently lives in the Los Angeles area in United States and teaches business seminars for industry executives at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

and

UCLA Extension UCLA Extension is a public continuing education institution headquartered in Westwood, Los Angeles, on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Classes are held at UCLA, in Downtown Los Angeles, and other locations throughout L ...

. He is a member of the Asia Society and a Charter Member of the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

Amritt Ventures

In 2002 Bagla started Amritt Ventures, a consulting firm based in the Los Angeles area; he currently acts as its managing director. The stated purpose of the company is to aid North American and European firms in becoming familiar with routine Asian business practices, and specifically in marketing their products to India and China, both of which are

BRIC BRIC is a grouping acronym referring to the developing countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which are identified as rising economic powers. It is typically rendered as "the BRIC," "the BRIC countries," "the BRIC economies," or alte ...

countries. Amritt provides its clients with training

workshop Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the on ...

s on topics like

human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ...

issues in India, the financial and legal environment, and

Indian culture Indian culture is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse India. The term al ...

. Notable clients of Amritt include

Kraft Foods The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arran ...

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...

Trijicon Trijicon, Inc. ( ) is an American manufacturing company based in Wixom, Michigan that designs and distributes sighting devices for firearms including pistols, rifles and shotguns. Trijicon specializes in self-luminous optics and night sights, ...

Clorox The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American global manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2020 the Oakland, California based company had approximately 8,800 employees worldwide. Net sales ...

, Johnson & Johnson,

Reckitt Benckiser Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, trade name, trading as Reckitt, is a United Kingdom, British multinational corporation, multinational fast moving consumer goods, consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, England. It is a producer of health, ...

Burt's Bees Burt's Bees is an American multinational, personal care product company. The company is a subsidiary of Clorox that describes itself as an " Earth-friendly, Natural Personal Care Company" making products for personal care, health, beauty and ...

and

Vivendi Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...

Writing

Bagla's book '' Doing Business in 21st Century India'' was released by Business Plus, an imprint of

Hachette Book Group Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the third largest trade and educational publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Gr ...

, in July 2008. The book is a guide for North American and European investors and entrepreneurs on doing business in modern India. The book was released to highly positive reviews;

Jagdish Sheth Jagdish N. Sheth (born 1938) is the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University. He was a prominent member of the core team during the initial years of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutt ...

, the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the

Goizueta Business School Emory University's Goizueta Business School (also known as ''Goizueta Business School'', ''Emory Business School'', or simply ''Goizueta'' – pronounced ''goy-swet-ah'') is the private business school of Emory University located in Atlanta, Georgi ...

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

, commented that it was "an excellent practical guide," while R. Gopalakrishnan of the

Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...

called it "a refreshingly simple book on a very complex subject." Bagla also writes articles on global business, particularly on the ties between the United States and India. He has served as a guest columnist for the

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...

, writing about topics such as business in India and U.S.-India business relations. He has also written guest columns for ''Med Device Online'' about the medical device industry in India.

Other publications and appearances

In 2007 Bagla was interviewed by

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

, a video-game development website, about the impact the release of the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

would have on the Indian gaming market. Bagla remarked that "most mainstream American

ame #REDIRECT AME {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

titles can translate well into the Indian market"; he went on to list '' Quake'', ''

Counter-Strike ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preve ...

'', and '' Age of Empires'' as some of the most successful titles. In 2008 the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' interviewed Bagla about the impending purchase of DreamWorks by Anil Ambani, an Indian business magnate and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Bagla compared Ambani to "

Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to: People with the name Rockefeller f ...

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

and

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...

." Bagla was also interviewed by ''BusinessWeek'' following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, commenting on the effect the attacks could have on foreign business in India. In April 2010, Bagla was the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the South Asian Studies Association, held at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

. His topic was "Globalization: India and the US." Bagla also gave comments to

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

after attending a meeting with President Barack Obama during his visit to India in 2010. In 2014, Bagla was interviewed by

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

about the economic effects of

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament fro ...

’s election as prime minister of India. The Journal interviewed Bagla again about the special requirements India imposed on tech companies before Modi’s reelection in 2019 and after his reelection in 2020. Bagla commented the foreign tech companies “should not rest in asserting their point of view” to the authorities in India. Bagla was interviewed by Med Device Online about the medical device industry in India in 2017. Bagla was also interviewed by

about business travel and bilateral trade in the wake of airline companies adding more flights to India in 2020. He opined that the Indian government “has become more business friendly.” In 2022, Bagla gave comments to The New York Times after the death of his colleague

Umang Gupta Umang Gupta (August 3, 1949 – April 19, 2022) was an Indian-American entrepreneur and Silicon Valley, California, executive credited with writing the first business plan for Oracle Corporation. He was also the founder of enterprise software c ...

. He called Gupta “an exceptional leader who could bring a group from chaos to calmness.” Bagla also appeared at Azadi Ka Amrit Mahosav, an event held in California celebrating the 75th anniversary of India’s independence in 2022.

References

External links