Catch Them Young - Amar Deb

Submitted by ITV Production on Mar 05, 2007

Amar Deb, head honcho, Channel [V] tells Nidhi Jain on what it takes to be a leader of youth.

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader

Lessons you learnt
I have learnt from other leaders. First lessons was from Alyque Padamsee, my boss at Lintas. He believed in the theory, practice makes a man perfect. . Whenever he went to make a presentation he practiced it three times till he was perfect and only then would he present it. So if a man with a theatre background and as accomplished as him practices, then we all really need to follow the same format.

Method of pacifying madness
Well, I have my own simple get-away. There are mainly two things that work for me, first, by listening to very loud music in my car while driving (though not the safest things to do!). The other thing is to go out camping, I leave the city and camp as much as I can, that helps me get back to normalcy. As for workplace madness, there are so many couches lying around in my office. Whenever we are on the verge of burnout, we all quietly lie down in our corners and snooze.

Great necessities call forth great leaders.
Abigail Adams

People that influenced
Far too many - to begin with Alyque Padamsee, as mentioned earlier my boss at Lintas, my first creative director Sumit Chaterjee, to a large extent Sameer Nair , Peter Mukherjea and Deepak Segal.

Strategic alliances
I don't apply too much strategy when it comes to people. I think people need to be given independence to think the way they want to.
I am really persistent in my ways to ensure work happens. At Channel [v], we have the best people to work with, very open minded, great fun, great artists and brilliant film makers.
Above all, we follow an open work culture, anyone with an idea can share their thoughts and take the idea forward, if feasible.

There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.
Bernd Brecher

Changing rules of work
Currently the market scenario is rapidly evolving making it an exciting period for a niche channel like ours. And that's not all, viewers are becoming extremely demanding and that is keeping us constantly on our toes.

Ensuring that the team delivers
My team delivers! They are a bunch of creative boys and girls and, I think, are far better than any team I know.

Fun part of your business
I get to deal with artists - both national and international, movie directors, producers and trust me that's immensely satisfying.
Speaking to Kailash Kher on world music, to Sunidhi Chauhan on her journey from living in chawls to a sprawling house at Bandra, to Akon on hip hop and its future, to Rabbi Shergill play guitar... What more can I ask for?