Personal Experiences:
G V Krishnagopal sir was born and brought up in a lower middle-class family. He scored 95% in 10th class and later joined Dairy technology Engineering. KG sir attempted MBA entrance exams after his engineering as he was interested in management courses, but he was a unable to get in, he was disappointed but his father recommended him to get into IRMA as he believed it would actually be helpful to him and match his mindset. In 1999 he graduated from IRMA and joined Care India. He worked there for 4–5 months and didn’t enjoy the working style at NGO very slow and lethargic. So he decided to move on. He joined the Co-operative Development Foundation. He took a salary cut as a trade off for great learning opportunity. When he was offered the challenge to connect 7000 women in 6 months as part of setting up dairy plant at Mulkanoor he ook it up even though he was offered only 33 percent of his earlier salary i.e. only 1/3rd of his earlier salary
He would work for about sixteen to eighteen hours every day during this period and played a crucial role in setting up the Mulkanoor dairy’s swakrushi brand and its promotion. He met Rama Reddy and Shashi Rajagopalan here who further became his mentors in life.
He later started his own entrepreneurial journey. He continued working 18 hours a day until he got married. After which he has been working only 8 hours a day. According to him the years after your education is over are the best years to put in all the effort you can. Have a clarity in life about how you want your life to look like at the given age
G V Krishnagopal sir’s other inspirations in life were his mother who worked passionately irrespective of her educational qualifications. Vikram Sarabhai and Prof. Verghese Kurien have been his big inspirations.
AL Group Journey
G V Krishnagopal sir established ALC India in 2005 along with Satya Dev who was his fellow at IRMA.
● 2005–06: At the end of first year ALC served 10 clients in five states. World vision was the first partner for a training programme on livelihoods promotion.
● End of 1st year: Staff strength increased to three and two room office was set up.Initiatives in 5 first five years: Transforming India Magazine and Annual Symposium has initiated.2009–10: ALC India’s first regional unit starts in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha
● 2009–10: Friends of Women’s World Banking (FWWB) becomes ALC India’s first institutional financier, providing two loans of Rs. 1.5 million and Rs. 2.5 million.
● 2012: Focus shifted decisively to long-term assignments, involving building of end-to-end value chains for particular, marginalized communities, over a period of 5 to 8 years. Two domains — Farmers’ Enterprises Program (FEP) and Tribal Enterprises Program (TEP) — were established.
● 2012: ALC India was selected as one of the four apex resource institutions for Farmer Producer Organizations’ project of SFAC
● 2013–15: G V Krishnagopal Sir shared that the 6 years period has gone to convince funders to invest 5 crores. On a positive note, whenever ALC was at 3.5 crore turnover; they could successfully sign a loan of 15.5 crore with NSDC.
● 2015–17: New ventures like ALF, ALDF and ALLF were founded under AL group.
● 2016: First CSR project in Odisha.
● 2017: Selected as established Incubation Center by NITI Aayog, under Atal Innovation Mission, to incubate women producer enterprises, with a support of Rs 10 crores.
● AL Group’s current vision is to enhance the livelihood of 1 million economically disadvantaged households by March 2028.
● At the current stage ALC has figured out 10 communities to be impacted through their intervention and developed 5 livelihood ecosystems models.
● ALC has developed a brand named Creyo. While this brand is prominently only in use at Maval Dairy, ALC plans to promote all products produced by its producer companies under the Creyo brand name.
● Creyo is India’s third fully women’s owned brand after Lijjat papad and Mulkanoor Dairy.
● Transforming India Magazine, Tathya documentary screening were some of ALC India’s failure in its early years
- Organization Culture
● ALC believes that it is not possible to have one solution that fits all. ALC works with diverse communities , geographies and stakeholders. ALC has created various models of transformation to operate in different scenarios — Beehive, Cross pollination, Metamorphosis and others.
● The enterprise has a clearly defined mission as well as vision. The mission of ALC India is to create a world for everyone — producers, consumers, enterprises, and entrepreneurs.
● ALC India sees the marginalised communities that they work with as partners and not beneficiaries
● ALC India believes in conservative use of resources and does not spend money on fancy office facilities
- Takeaways from Speaker’s Journey
● Work as much as you can until you are married and when you are married or have a family decide how much time you need to balance it all
● Have a mentor and be worthy of your mentor before asking them to guide you
● Being profitable is the key to creating a sustainable impact.
- Comments on Organization Structure
● The thing that struck me the most was the salary Cap that was 1:12, which in turn I believe brings in people mostly with aligning mission, vision.
● Creating a suitable organization structure with different entities to best use the available policy structure in the country to meet his needs
- Practices, which you thought are very unique, and could be replicated
● A cap on salary
● Not being in rush for growth but for quality, having principles in mind (like no bribes) and values intact