After exit from Royal Enfield, Dasari to foray into health care
After a two-year stint as the chief executive officer of Royal Enfield, Vinod K Dasari has announced that he is stepping down from the post to chase his ‘passion’ — affordable health care and skill development.
However, not much was discussed in public about what his future passion is about, other than letting the media know that it will be a “not-for-profit” venture. “It is still in a nascent stage. After being a business leader for several years, I wanted to give something back to society. The plan is to go ahead with the health care venture founded by my wife Sarita, who is a doctor,” Dasari told Business Standard. Before joining Royal Enfield, he was the MD and CEO of Ashok Leyland, since 2011.
On August 4, a new building of a 40-bed multi-speciality hospital at Nungambakkam in Chennai under Vijay Ganga Specialty Care (VGSC) and owned by Dasari’s family was inaugurated. Dasari said the hospital will start operations in the next 15 days. “We will come up with more facilities, depending on its success. We have invested only about ~75 crore for this facility. In the corporate world, this may be a small amount,” he said.
VSGC was established by Dr Sarita in 2009 and started as a small clinic in Mylapore in 2013.
The new hospital will offer a network of comprehensive services that include primarily prevention and wellness, vascular services, nephrological services, urological services, general specialties, hospital care, diagnostic and treatment services. “One in every five persons in India is diabetic, one out of three has hypertension and my wife is an expert in that field. So, we are working on how to leverage both our skills and build something together,” he added. Dr Sarita is a graduate of Karnataka Medical College and did her specialisation in Internal Medicine from Aultman Hospital and super specialisation in nephrology from Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio.
The couple is also planning to expand VGSC’S dialysis technologist training academy, also known as Train4life, to develop skills of students, nursing attendants, and current practising dialysis technologists. “Why not provide training to people and help them build their careers... it will be part of the venture. We will be looking at any skill base that is required in the segment,” he said. On the not-for-profit model, Dasari said a trust will take care of the expenses who cannot afford treatment.
When asked about his decision to quit the corporate world, Dasari said, “My passion or gift is to create investor businesses. The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away. The best way to do it is to start something that grows. To give something back to the community, and generate employment,” he said.