Tirthankar Chatterjee - the Genius Alumnus!

Tirthankar Chatterjee - the all-round, superstar alumnus 

College Days 

He is known by various pet names to friends and family, over the years - Tutu, Chats, Mookan and more recently, simply TC.

TC studied in IHM Madras, from 1984 to 1987, and was also the gold medallist from his batch. He is a real humble genius - brilliant in academics, outstanding in creative pursuits like debating, acting, jamming, quizzing and an amazing sportsman. A true, high-performing allrounder. I remember the pride we had when he led our college cultural team to win the overall title in Mardigras, the cultural inter-collegiate festival in IIT Madras, in the year 1987.

But most importantly, he exhibits the best values and qualities in a human being -compassion, humility, kindness, a great sense of humour, helpfulness and is disarming to a fault. And for those of us who are lucky to know him for many decades, he is the best friend anyone can have - many will vouch for this, with their experiences in knowing him. A true ‘role model’ in every sense of the word.

I always call him Chats, like many others from our college days, and met him first in 1985, when I joined IHM. He was introduced to me by my dearest friend and batchmate, Anand Shankar. They studied together in school, PSBB, Madras and were also dear friends and debate partners from school days. We became close friends right away, enjoyed many experiences and escapades together in a group during our college days. We then also became work colleagues in a couple of companies, first was in Oberoi Hotels, in the Oberoi School of Management days and then again in Griffith Laboratories, when he was working in the US and I worked for the same group in India and the Middle East.

Career Path and Track Record

In the campus interviews for his batch, Chats got into all the major hotel chains in their management training programmes – ITC, Taj and Oberoi Hotels and he chose to join in the MT programme in Oberoi School of Hotel Management in 1987. He was the star performer in his batch, as expected, and was awarded the M.S. Oberoi Gold Medal for Outstanding Performance. He then was posted as an Assistant Manager, in the F&B Department in The Oberoi Grand Hotel in Calcutta in 1989, and quickly started rising through the ranks. 

In spite of being fast tracked to possibly becoming one of the youngest GMs in Oberoi Hotels, he decided to study more in 1993, and got admission into the MBA programme at Babson College, the top rated school for Entrepreneurship MBA (higher than even Harvard Business School), and moved to Boston for his studies. 

On graduating with top honours, as always, he was hired by in the Marketing Department by Bestfoods, (which was later acquired by Unilever) based in Chicago. He rose quickly to become Director of Marketing. After working there for 5 years, Unilever acquired the company and Chats moved as Director of Marketing for Unilever Foodsolutions, for another two years. 

Around this time, he was head hunted by Custom Culinary Inc., the food service solutions arm of Griffith Laboratories Inc., as VP of Marketing and achieved considerable success over the succeeding years till he became the President of Custom Culinary. 

While he held this position, Chats was awarded and became the member of ‘The Honorable Order of the Golden Toque’ (an elite group of only 100 super-accomplished Chefs in USA). He was possibly the only non-professional Chef to be given this honour, thanks to his stellar contribution to the culinary profession and arts during his years in Custom Culinary, a truly remarkable honour.

In 2015, Chats was promoted as the Chief Operating Officer of Griffith Laboratories, which then went through a total rebranding exercise and then was renamed as Griffith Foods. In October of 2016, Chats was promoted again and became the Chief Executive Officer of Griffith Foods globally, based out of Chicago, and a role which he still serves today. 

Chats career is a perfect example of a professional who has always stayed on the path of a Pursuit of Excellence, and he has achieved everything in his career thanks to his outstanding competence, resilience and performance. There is so much to learn by tracking his career and seeing how excellence with human values still triumphs. May he keep shining in the years ahead and carry the flag of IHM Madras/Chennai even higher and further for all of us.

Family and Future :

Chat’s parents of live in Kolkata while his wife, Pia and two sons, Vicram and Rayan, live in the US. 

Chats is a globetrotter, trying to efficiently manage operations and performance of his global team and cover the entire world where Griffith Foods operates.  He is now taking Griffith Foods on the next phase of its aggressive growth. The company is in very safe hands and will continue delivering outstanding results, with Chats at the helm.

I feel blessed to have had Chats as a dear friend, confidante, colleague and essentially an extended family member, who has always remained the same Tutu, Chats, Mookan or TC, to everyone. We can be really proud of him and we wish him more and more success in the future as well.

IHM Chennai can easily claim that one of the most illustrious and acclaimed alumnus to walk through its gates, is Tirthankar Chatterjee! 

Shine on Chats! God Bless!

Written by Shyam Mohan