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It is, therefore, not surprising that the ITC board has given him a five-year extension after a 15-year term as executive chairman.
With this extension, Deveshwar becomes ITC's longest-serving chairman. Longevity in office, of course, is not a virtue in itself but it does enable CEOs to consolidate in a way their shorter-tenure counterparts may not always manage.
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Both are outstanding performers and have fashioned themselves as prominent public figures.
Deveshwar, by contrast, is low-profile, but he has arguably been the better performer.
He inherited a company neck-deep in unsavoury controversies - tax evasion charges, a predecessor who had been jailed for financial irregularities in overseas deals and strained relations with its largest overseas shareholder, British American Tobacco.
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Certainly, in the poisonous atmosphere at ITC's ornate Kolkata headquarters in those days, and as anointed successor to the feisty and earthy K L Chugh, Deveshwar must have possessed considerable talent for manoeuvre.
Still, if those controversies have faded into the mists of corporate history, the credit clearly goes to Deveshwar.
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Sales have grown at a CAGR of 16 per cent and net profit 17 per cent - decent, not spectacular, going for a company that spent a considerable amount of its resources expanding and diversifying.
In contrast to the early 1990s when ITC exited several businesses - financial services, agri-business and seeds - Deveshwar has managed to build the hotel business into a respectable global brand (the Bill Clinton and George Bush visits no doubt helped) and grow the paper business.
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Much of this was achieved by nurturing new managerial talent. ITC has also been one of the early adopters of environmental standards, becoming water- and carbon-positive long before environment ever came on India Inc's agenda.
For his remaining five-year term, Deveshwar's challenge will be to identify and build his successor, a project that he's clearly set for himself.
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But perhaps the bigger one is kicking the dependence on tobacco and cigarettes, much of which has financed the group's growth.
The business already accounts for a lower percentage of ITC's turnover - from 90 per cent in FY 2001 to about 70 per cent now.
Learning to grow without tobacco will be a real test of ability.