Samir Hanumanth Singh, the 31-year-old COO of WorldTel, who was determined to keep alive the legacy of his predecessor Mark Mascarenhas, died in a road accident barely a year after he took over. Mascarenhas had also died in a car accident last year.
In a recent interview, Samir had said he was all set to reveal his plans for WorldTel. In his own words, "I have it all mapped out in my head."
All this came to an end when Samir met with the accident on May 17 night while he was returning to his Indiranagar residence after a late night party.
The accident occurred around 11.45 p.m. when he was negotiating a steep curve. His car collided with a bus coming in the opposite direction. Samir died on the spot.
WorldTel has revolutionised the sports-endorsement industry in India, especially once they became Sachin Tendulkar's agents in 1996.
Tendulkar, who is currently in the US recovering from a hand-surgery, is still represented by WorldTel. The company, left so brutally headless, could do no more than issue a one-line statement announcing the tragedy.
Samir had worked in England for several years before taking over at WorldTel. When he decided to return to India to join WorldTel, he was working for a Singapore-based company, Zoom sports.
He had already worked abroad for seven years when he decided to return to India and work with Mark Mascarenhas, whom he had always looked up to.
Initially, Mark hesitated to take Samir on board, until the latter managed to convince him after a long chat in their very first meeting.
Though Samir worked under Mark for only about five months until the latter passed away in a similar fashion, learning under Mark greatly enriched Samir.
When 23-year-old Samir completed his graduation in Delhi and left for England to find a job. He decided to import flowers with the help of some NRIs and started a company, Camouflage Flowers.
This proved to be really strenuous for someone who did not have any kind of support in Portsmouth, England.
WorldTel was started by Mark Mascarenhas in 1989 after brief stints with radio broadcasting stations in the US, including WCBS, which was CBS's number one news radio station.
The company was is in the eye of a storm when it was accused of allegedly depriving Doordarshan of $4 million in respect of telecast rights for the International Cricket Council's knockout tournament in Dhaka in October 1998.
WorldTel beat down all the allegations and went on to take sports franchising forward. That is until the dual accidents.
