Remembering an outstanding leader, entrepreneur, and friend DS Puri

Devinder Singh Puri, fondly known as Pammi, was born in Kolkata in 1949. After completing his schooling and college, he moved to Delhi to take up his first job with Delhi Cloth & General Mills as an Executive Trainee in their Textile division until 1973. In 1975, he was a part of the six of us (Shiv Nadar, Arjun Malhotra, Subhash Arora, Yogesh Vaidya, Pammi and myself) who left DCM to start HCL.

He was an outstanding leader and a great salesperson, who played an important role in the initial start-up period. He was an integral part of the creation of the Reprographics and Communication Businesses and ended up heading them. Besides, he always had a great flair for creating infrastructure and played a major role in creating all the initial infrastructure for the group.

His another interest  was people. This led him to manage the HR function of the group. Despite a successful career at HCL, deep inside he was an entrepreneur and wanted to pursue his passion for the hospitality business. He decided to move out of HCL operations in May 1997 to realize his dreams but continued to be on the Board.

As Chairman of Archer Hospitality, he was the man behind two great projects: The Astor in Kolkata and Doubletree by Hilton Agra. The Astor in Kolkata is housed in a century old building and has been in operation for over 50 years. It is the only heritage boutique offering in Kolkata. Also, Doubletree by Hilton Agra, located in the heart of Agra city center, is one of the few hotels offering views of the legendary monument.
Pammi was a part of my Board in HCL Infosystems and I always depended on him for advice. He had a great acumen for numbers and came well-prepared with difficult questions for the executive team. He also headed the Customer Satisfaction Committee of the Board and his deep insights helped HCL achieve the pinnacle in customer satisfaction ratings done by Dataquest.

He was a romantic at heart. He was in Darjeeling with his wife Neena to celebrate their anniversary. Darjeeling was also the place where they had gone for their honeymoon. However, we lost him there on March 7. His untimely and sudden death has been really difficult for his family and all of us. He has left behind two great kids, Reetika and Vikram.
As a mark of respect, HCLites across all offices observed silence for 2 minutes and condolence meetings were held at HCL offices where everyone joined in offering gratitude and prayers. Pammi was a great friend and all of us will miss him.