24 hours with...Karthik Nagarajan

Name: Karthik Nagarajan

Job: CEO, Hogarth India

Professional Mantra: Consistency has talent for breakfast.

 

5:30 AM – 6:30 AM: Yes, as a stereotypical South Indian, I start my day very early. We live in a place where one can hear the ocean waves clearly in the wee hours of the day. It is an ideal setting for productivity, and I tend to use the first hour for the day’s tasks that are intellectually the hardest. Most people use their mornings for bursts of creativity, but strangely for me, this seems to be the part when I am at my analytical best. Teams are also used to getting a lot of critical emails from me during this time. The success of this part of my morning though is directly proportional to the quality of the coffee that is being brewed!

 

6:30 AM – 8:00 AM: When I am not travelling, this part of my morning entirely belongs to my daughter. As any young, hands-on parent would tell you, it takes a village to get a child ready for the day. It is both exhausting and fulfilling at the same time. On days that I am travelling though, I tend to take early morning flights where the sound of waves is (almost) as effectively replaced by the hum of the jet engines.

 

8:00 AM – 8:30 AM: Usually this is the window for my workout. I alternate between outdoor running and a classic strength workout at the gym. The 4Km runs, of course, give more endorphins than the gym workout for me.

 

8:30 AM – 10 AM: As you can tell, I tend to start my day early and most of the time I have a working breakfast. Emails seem to go quite well along with a portion of poached eggs or a parantha and some coconut water.

 

10:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Usually I keep this window blocked for repeatable calls – like weekly one-on-ones with my leadership team or our Exco / regional calls. I like to spend 50% of my time as a leader communicating with my leadership team and only the other 50% on anything else. And weekly calls are great because we can take both tactical decisions and also check in on strategic goals at the same time. 

 

1:00 PM-2:00 PM: Lunch is usually with colleagues or friends. But if you work in any of the WPP campuses, these borders are highly blurred. The WPP pantries provide you with the variety of a lunch buffet and also the intimacy of a chai shop. You can feel the buzz from tens of metres away. This is a part of the day I really look forward to and that is not just for the great food!

 

2:00 PM – 6:00 PM: This part of the day is all about ‘Works in progress’. I tend to keep fewer meetings in the second half but if they are unavoidable, I prefer to make them ‘walking meetings’. Nothing like brainstorming or solving for a challenge over a walk and I request colleagues to walk with me rather than book a meeting room. The WPP campuses are a great place to walk - inside and outside and I believe that the mind solves better when we are on the move.

 

Evenings: Given I start early, I tend to wind down by 6 or 7 PM. An early family dinner and a catch-up on each other’s day is an ideal unwinder. I also tend to use post-dinner time a lot to learn. In the business of communications, consuming content is unavoidable and even critical for learning. Also as a podcaster, I tend to use my late evenings a lot to read about topics and potential guests on the show.