When you have been among the prominent names in your profession and have enjoyed utmost respect, with several aspirants looking up to you, a minor damage to your reputation can cost you a lot, let alone being charged and sentenced in a serious fraud case. It may take a lifetime for a person to be able to overcome such a jolt and rebuild his or her life all over again.

However, Rajan Gupta, the man who has seen it all, thinks otherwise.

Former managing director of consultancy McKinsey & Company, board member of Goldman Sachs and once Bill Gates’ adviser, Gupta, who was sentenced to 2 years in prison in securities fraud in the US, doesn’t feel the need of rebuilding himself.

“

It is not so much that I need to reinvent myself,” he said, in an interview with CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan.

“I have always been, for 25 years, extremely passionate about not only my profession but things beyond that … I have been always very involved in education and in health and in public health, I don’t need to reinvent myself in those things,” said Gupta.

Elaborating on his current projects, he said, “I was last week in Nigeria working towards establishing a university there and technology and management. I have been working lately in Gujarat on maternal and child health issues in a very large group of 300,000 people … these are not reinventions, this is what I have always done.”

Gupta, however, expressed that going forward, his focus would be on spending more time with his family, friends and travelling.

“I am 70 now, so the reinvention is I spend more time with my family, I spend more time with myself, I spend more time travelling, so on … I don’t feel I have to prove anything, I just do what I enjoy, I do spend time with people I enjoy spending time with, I work on issues that I am passionate about and I spend more time with my family and friends.”

>>Read the full transcript of his interview here

First Published:Mar 24, 2019 3:26 PM IST