Rajendra Prasad Yadav was always at the top of his class in school. “I wanted to be the best in whatever I did,” he says. “It’s because of this urge to excel that I have reached the position I am in now.”

Today, the founder of human resources consultancy firm Genius Consultants Ltd, is growing his business rapidly and making a foray overseas. Yadav puts his success down to his sense of discipline, something that’s deeply ingrained and which helped him perform well in his studies too.

After completing his BSc from Calcutta University, Yadav enrolled for an MBA at the city-based Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management. “I was also working at that time, so I was able to relate the theories we learnt to the realities of the corporate world,” he says.

Yadav worked for many top companies, including Johnson & Johnson and HCL. His field was marketing and, as usual, he was the best. The 16 years he spent in the corporate world taught him many things — right from the basics of time management to effective team building. With those as his assets, he decided to take a plunge into the world of business.

Early in his career, he realised that the human element was important for success. So he decided to supply this important resource to firms. “Plus, my father worked in the Employment Exchange. This influenced me to start a private employment exchange,” Yadav says.

“Marketing might have been my profession but HR was my passion. I wanted to metamorphose my passion into a business.” He started Genius Consultants in 1993 with a capital of Rs 70,000. His office was just a hired table and chair (rent Rs 35) placed in a quiet corner of his home. But within two-and-a-half years, he had purchased office space in the centrally-located Park Circus area in Calcutta.

Yadav faced all the problems that a fledgling business does: clients were few and far between because most people were not ready to entrust the work of recruitment to an unknown entity like Genius. But he had made a habit of excelling even in trying situations. Slowly but surely, he made Genius a name to reckon with. His motto was excellence with speed. He had the advantage of being one of the first people in the area of recruitment consultancy and he made sure that he did not lose that edge. His clients had no reason to complain so they kept coming back to him instead of going to the competition.

“To combat competition, it is necessary to build a strong team. And to keep a team of great professionals together, it is important to create strong bonds between the team members as well as a good relationship with the firm. That’s the human element again,” says Yadav.

By 1998, Genius was doing well enough for Yadav to think about expanding. He opened a branch office in Chennai that year, followed by one in New Delhi in 2000, Mumbai in 2002 and Bangalore in 2003. After opening franchisee offices in most cities in India, Genius diversified into manpower outsourcing, payroll outsourcing and employment verification services.

Yadav is now planning to go international. “By 2009, we plan to open offices in the US, the UK and West Asia.”

For a businessman, Yadav’s inspiration is a little unworldly — he believes in Gandhigiri. “Gandhiji’s work philosophy was similar to what I believe in. And he was the first to realise the importance of the human element — the importance of building a strong team to combat competition.”

Yadav lists effective team building as one of the keys to success. The others? Constructive discipline, effective time management and the ability to think long term. “You should know what you want to do for at least the next five years and take decisions accordingly. It is important to have a long-term vision for the company, especially because the competition in this field is cut-throat,” he says.

What does he do to tackle the stress brought on by this fast pace? Like most corporate honchos, Yadav plays golf to relax. He is also very particular about fitness and visits the gym regularly. And he loves taking off with his family and friends for short pleasure trips. After all, it is this human connection that brought him success.

Based on a conversation with Paromita Sen in Calcutta