Rupesh Mehta, born in a Gujarati joint family, lived his childhood in Ghatkopar, Mumbai. His father used to run a retail business and his grandfather was a social worker. From his childhood days, he has seen a strong family bond with a traditional upbringing where his parents faced financial hiccups but managed it very well.He is the second child and had an elder sister who struggled with mental illness. She was bedridden and passed away at the age of 13.
“Living in a joint family with a sibling facing critical health issues was traumatic but also made me strong. I have seen my parents sacrificing their dreams to keep us out of the struggle which they faced daily. Being close to my mother and having watched her spending sleepless nights pushing me to make my career and do something great in my life, used to give me goosebumps but motivated me throughout my childhood and early youth days,” Mehta said in a freewheeling conversation.
Mehta is passionate about singing which he started early in his school days. Apart from his interests in extracurricular activities, he was good at academics. A focused studious child who wanted to achieve something great in his life.
Becoming an engineer was a dream
“While in my school days, I was more inclined towards various extracurricular and creative activities, my family thought I would pursue Arts further, but for me, it was very much clear from 8th standard that I want to become an engineer. Taking admission in engineering college was like a dream come true for me as economically it was a bit difficult, but fortunately, I got good support from family and I also managed to get some funds arranged from scholarships,” Mehta expressed.
After completing his 10th grade, Mehta took a diploma from Vivekanand polytechnic and then got enrolled for graduation in engineering from K.J.Somaiya college of engineering. Later, along with work he has achieved an MBA from SMU.
The best memories always come from college days
Mehta has stored many college days shenanigans in photo-based memories. While recalling a few, he remembered his first day at the diploma college where he had an awkward moment in his class debate which was fun and made him realise how important it is to get self-confidence and the development of our own perspective rather than following others. He used to participate in debates and was very aggressive towards expanding his knowledge and opinion towards various aspects of life and technology
The first job emotion
“After graduation, many of my friends went for further studies but for me, it was very clear that now it’s the payback time and any further investment in studies will put pressure on my family which clearly was not an ideal situation,” Mehta expressed.
Like every other student getting into a coding job then, Mehta was not interested to start his career with coding. He wanted to look at the larger picture and because of his telecommunication engineering he chooses to start with the IT networking area first, but with fewer job opportunities, he made him prepare to accept whatever falls in his fate. And fortunately, he got his first job at CMS computers as a technical consultant where his primary role was to conduct corporate training for MCSE, CCNA, etc.
“While I had my vision and choices cleared, the need of the hour was to start earning. This initial phase at CMS helped me to get my basics strong and secure monthly income. I knew that I wanted to be a part of something big and that search landed me in Reliance Infocom after some quick early hopping in the beginning year of my career. This was the phase where everything started moving at a tremendous pace. Every new day was a learning experience. I was fortunate that I could demonstrate my potential in my early days and started getting bigger responsibilities,” Mehta said.
Getting to work on a project for IT setup at Dhirubhai Ambani knowledge city ( DAKC) from conceptualisation to leading execution of data network for National Head Quarter (NHQ) at such an early stage of his career was an experience and time which he can never forget.
That one moment which outlived the entire life
Mehta cannot forget the 26th July 2005 incident where Mumbai city was flooded and choked. After walking for more than 3 hours he reached his home and by the time he got there, he realized that his IT hardware and equipment were stored in the office basement.
“I cannot forget that night of struggle and nightmare, worrying about IT equipment and how a massive loss is going to impact his organisation. I started early in the morning walking back to my office to keep equipment in a safe place. After moving that equipment to safe storage, the moment of achievement I felt at that time is irreplaceable,” Mehta recalled.
Family and work, two parallel worlds
“Like any other working professional, it is a bit difficult and complicated to balance work and personal life. But I admit to being fortunate to have my parents living with me and even more blessed to have a strong equation between wife and parents which brings overall harmony and takes away a lot of burden from day-to-day house affairs. Two ladies of the house (my mother and my wife) ensure quality time is maintained in the house,” Mehta expressed.
He loves spending time with his kids and usually ends up playing physical games with his younger son Mantra who is 4 and is fond of running. His elder son Mann is 11 and likes to binge-watch sci-fi movies and series. Mehta spends his weekend watching superhero movies with him, as it is something common between the father and son duo.
Work experience
Mehta has over 17 years of experience in IT management and technology transformation. Starting from the bottom and with experience progressing on top, Mehta considers himself fortunate to get his hands into different technologies and sectors. From telecom to Oil & Gas, from Infrastructure to IoT and Insurance, every sector has helped me to learn new stuff providing an edge as a technology leader.
“Different sectors have different challenges, but one common point is how we apply technology to solve those problems. Over a period, I have gained a strong sense that one needs to understand the business well to apply innovative solutions” Mehta expressed.
Currently, he is Vice President-IT at Aegon Life where he has led technology support to successfully work from home enablement. Before joining Aegonlife insurance company, Mehta worked at Reliance Health Insurance as Chief Technology Officer.
That one ‘aha’ tech project deployment
When asked about the most difficult yet rewarding technology project deployment of his life, Mehta highlighted his time back at Reliance Health Insurance in 2018. He shared his experience of launching a complete digital health insurance platform at Reliance.
“Back in 2017 when I was working at Reliance Health Insurance as CTO, my mission was to set up a technology platform to launch a digital health insurance business. Starting from paperless processing of customer entry to operating the final settlement through a digital platform. The project planning itself gave us moments of doubts and feelings of failure. But with all hard work and teamwork we successfully launched a fully digital health insurance solution in a record time,” Mehta expressed.
He and his team started from scratch to set up the required IT infrastructure and application platform, to support this digital vision. According to him, evaluating the right applications to set up the most agile architecture and managing over 50 partners with a project team of more than 300 team members was challenging at times.
“Developing a single mobile application for our sales team, customer service and other key domains of the business was a milestone for any insurance company at that time. We launched the API-ready interface for partner integration. Complete setup from sourcing to policy underwriting to policy issuance was paperless. Claim management was also fully digital. We launched our business with a digital-only presence with complete dependency on technology without any hiccups. It was really a magical experience for all of us,” Mehta explained.
Enabling work from anywhere amid the covid-19 pandemic was a learning experience
Adding further, the Covid-19 pandemic also has shown him some never seen situations. Mehta joined Aegonlife insurance a few months before the pandemic. He started with his IT strategy for the company but in the wake of Covid-19, his priorities shifted towards supporting BCP readiness, and successful enablement of work from home.
“Getting the entire team together and working for more than 18 hours to enable work from home was a tough time. With Virtual desktop interface (VDI) technology we ensured to scale up from 20 to 200 within weeks and then further we covered the entire organisation to work from home. I had told my team till we don’t ensure that every single user is seamlessly working from home without any issue. We should not relax, and our mission continues. We could achieve it with teamwork and management support. There was not a single day when our operations were impacted during the lockdown,” Mehta added.
Lastly, Mehta concluded by expressing gratitude for whatever he has achieved in life.
“It’s all about your fighting spirit and willingness to continue learning from life. We should enjoy every phase of life with the same curiosity and don’t let our inner fighter die,” Mehta concluded.
