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 ra ...

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) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

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 Los ...

. He is a member of the

Asia Society The Asia Society is a 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States (Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle) and around the world (Hong Ko ...

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 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 only ...

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 and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse nation of India, pertaining to the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and the Republic of India post-1947. ...

. Notable clients of Amritt include

Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

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 si ...

Clorox The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2024, the Oakland, California-based company had approximately 8,000 employees worldwide. N ...

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technologies corporation headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its common stock is a c ...

Reckitt Benckiser Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, currently branded as Reckitt, formerly known as Reckitt Benckiser, is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, United Kingdom. It is a producer of health, hygiene and nutrition prod ...

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 pers ...

and

Vivendi Vivendi SE (stylized in all lowercase) is a French investment company headquartered in Paris. It currently wholly-owns Gameloft as well as a number of investments in several companies, primarily involved in content, entertainment, media, and t ...

Writing

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

Hachette Book Group Hachette Book Group, Inc. (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 Lagard� ...

, 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 Calcu ...

, 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 a private business school of Emory University located in Atlanta, Georgia ...

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

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

Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest business conglomerate, with products and services in over 160 countries, and operations in 100 c ...

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 not-for-profit, independent corporation that is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. ''HBR'' is published six times a year ...

, 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 created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...

, 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 Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

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 opposing teams attempt to complete various objectives. The series began on Windows in 1999 with the release of the first game, '' Counte ...

'', and ''

Age of Empires ''Age of Empires'' is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. The first title in the series, ''Age of Empires'', focused on events in Europe, Afri ...

'' as some of the most successful titles. In 2008 the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' interviewed Bagla about the impending purchase of DreamWorks by

Anil Ambani Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (born 4 June 1959) is an Indian billionaire, businessman, chairman, and managing director of Reliance Group (a.k.a. Reliance ADA Group). The Reliance Group was created in July 2006 following a demerger from Reliance Indus ...

, an Indian

business magnate A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

and chairman of

Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Reliance may refer to: Companies * Reliance (bus company), a bus operator in North Yorkshire, England * Reliance Controls, an American electrical products company founded in 1909 in Wisconsin * Reliance Home Comfort, a Canadian water heate ...

. Bagla compared Ambani to " Rockefeller,

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

and

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...

." Bagla was also interviewed by ''BusinessWeek'' following the

2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks, also referred to as 26/11 attacks, were a series of coordinated Islamic terrorism, Islamist terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist o ...

, 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 The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

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

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

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'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

about the economic effects of

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

’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. 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