Kavelle bajaj biography meaning

Kavelle Bajaj is proof that the American dream is still alive.

Only nine years after starting her own computer-services company from the basement of her suburban home near Washington, this year-old immigrant presides over a business that is expected to ring up more than $ million in sales this year.

Bajaj, recently named by Working Woman magazine one of the top 50 woman business owners in the country, smiled as she recalled her saga, which began 20 years ago in India with an arranged marriage to a young computer scientist, Ken Bajaj, whom she had met only a few times before their wedding.

She followed him to the United States to live a life that began as a traditional wife and mother and evolved into a spectacular business success story.

Along the way she made a discovery: She found herself.

Bajaj’s bright corner office at I-NET headquarters here is filled with mementos that reflect her passions: a framed family photo in which she is a young mother in a traditional sari surrounded by her laughing sons and handsome husband; a religious icon documenting her strong faith; needlepoint pillows decorated with American eagles and other patriotic symbols, a testament to her pride in her adopted country; and a whimsical collection of more than 2, novelty pencils that she calls her “toys.” The pencils represent a failed attempt to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records but remind her that everyone needs a lighter side.

“I was born into a family that had very traditional values for the majority, except they did believe in giving their daughters a certain amount of education,” Bajaj said. “Granted, the education they wanted was everything that would prepare you to be an ideal housewife and a desired partner in life.”

Armed with a degree in home economics from the University of Delhi, the year-old bride arrived in the United States in and set up housekeeping, first in Michigan, where her husband was a university professor, and later in Maryland when he joined a computer-services firm.

For the next several years she managed the household and raised her two sons almost single-handedly as her husband pursued his fast-track career.

“I really enjoyed the time being home with my kids,” she said. “To me that was the most important mission in my life. I always believed the bonding that you do at that age and the love you develop between yourself and your children is really what stays.

“At the same time, I also felt there was a need for some mental stimulation,” she said. So she went back to school and took some computer courses. It was the early ’80s, about the time the computer industry was undergoing major changes as the technology began shifting from main-frame computers toward personal computers.

“The more I thought about it and the more I learned about it, the clearer the vision became,” Bajaj said, pronouncing the “v” like a “w” in a charming way that underscores her foreign roots. “I felt technology would be changing. There was no doubt in my mind that was the field for me.

“At the same time, I was going through some kind of re-evaluation of my life-what I had achieved, successes, failures and frustrations. I was searching for myself. There were low points in my self-esteem. I had little confidence.”

She recalled how she and her husband had argued about her getting a job. She said she wasn’t ready to leave her young children with a babysitter. She didn’t think she had the skills on paper to qualify for a professional position, and even if she was hired, she didn’t believe she was ready for such a commitment.

Her husband criticized her for all her excuses.

“In the end, where will you be?” she said he asked her. “I’ll have my career. The kids will have grown up. Where will you be?”

“That hurt me a lot,” Bajaj recalled. “It also made it crystal clear in my mind that I had to do something for myself. Here I was ready to sacrifice for everybody else. Yet until I could put some real value into it, it was not appreciated.”

She came up with an idea: to offer businesses a service that would coordinate all of their computer and information needs.

“At the time you had software people and network people and maintenance people and systems analysis people,” she said. “What I felt was missing was accountability. There was so much new technology and so much finger pointing when the system didn’t work that I felt-and this is what I told my potential customers-let I-NET be accountable for your requirements. Let us do your analysis and bring you the solution you need.”

Bajaj attended management seminars, enrolled in more computer courses, talked with people and applied to the Small Business Administration’s minority set-aside program to gain access to government contracts.

She was ready to make her mark on the business world when her husband was transferred, and he informed her the family would be moving back to Detroit.

“For the first time in my life I put my foot down,” she said. “I told him I was not moving. It was very hard. It was the first time I put my marriage on the line. It was the very first time in my life that I took a hard stand in saying, `I believe I can do this. I deserve a chance.”‘

Her husband understood, helped her establish goals and milestones and gave her six months to accomplish them.

“If you can do this, I won’t force you to move,” she recalled his telling her.

“That was the motivator,” Bajaj said of the early days of I-NET. “I had to get the business off and running, and I had to book so much business and have so much revenue. So that’s what I did.”

That was June Working from her basement with the help of a few freelancers and consultants, Bajaj landed her first few contracts. One required her to take delivery of several million dollars worth of personal computers and equipment, which she unloaded in her driveway, stacked in her garage and stayed awake all night to make sure nothing happened to the load.

Her company’s reputation for problem solving soon led to more contracts, a stable of employees and real office space. Although still eligible for the government set-aside program, Bajaj started going after commercial contracts early on and bidding against some of the giants in the information-technology field such as International Business Machines, American Telephone & Telegraph and Electronic Data Systems Corp., a General Motors subsidiary, where her husband worked.

“The key to success is specialization,” she said. “We believe we are specialists. All we do is related to networks.”

She explained that just as businesses once were helpless if their phone system crashed, now they are equally dependent on their computer networks. Bajaj said I-NET’s role is to understand a business’ needs and to develop a computer system to meet those needs. She described her company as the construction crew and traffic cop on the information highway.

Bajaj’s entry into the computer-network-services industry was well-timed, establishing I-NET’s reputation in the new, fast-growing field and prompting explosive growth rates of 80 to 90 percent a year, she said. Today, nine years after starting her company, Bajaj employs about 2, people, including her husband, in more than 30 cities. Company sales totaled $ million last year, and Bajaj said she expects to exceed the projected revenue of $ million.

As I-NET continued to grow, Bajaj started looking for some senior people to help guide the company.

“I always wanted someone like Ken,” she said, describing her husband as a rare person who understands the technical aspects of computers and also the marketing and operational sides of the business. “If you have these three characteristics in any one individual, you are way ahead of the game.

“But I didn’t think I could ever offer him what he was getting or ask him to give that up,” she said, referring to his successful career with EDS. “However, in one weak moment, I made a deal, and he said yes.” He agreed to join I-NET as executive vice president in

“It was a difficult decision,” she confided. “You have to accept the fact that there are implications for your personal life: Will you argue about business; will you take your problems home with you?” But, she said confidently, “It’s been one of the best decisions that we have ever made.”

Bajaj, who said she could have benefitted from a mentor during the early, difficult days of the business, tries to pass on some of her skills to other women entrepreneurs.

She is involved in a county mentor/protege program in which she is a sounding board for two women business owners who are trying to expand their businesses.

“I’m a very strong believer” in the program, Bajaj said, noting that it “doesn’t pay to reinvent the wheel every time.”

She also travels frequently to address professional conferences and said she is impressed by all the talented women she has encountered. The one thing many of them lack, she noted, is encouragement, and she tries to supply some. She tells them that she is an ordinary person, just as they. The difference is she “went out and did something about reaching for the dream,” she said.

“If someone told me that I would be able to step up to the management requirements of a company this size when I first started, it would have been hard to believe. I know somewhere in me was a voice that said `I can do it,’ but if I had gone and told a company like IBM, for example, to hire me because I know I can do it, I would have gotten the boot.”

She laughed, then continued: “I just feel that people in general, when you get put to the test and you really reach in to yourself, there’s a whole world of knowledge and strength that you find that surprises you.”

She has come a long way professionally over the last nine years, but Bajaj never strays far from her traditional roots. She talks about the need to juggle and prioritize her business and family demands, employing the “squeaky wheel concept” as needed, particularly with regard to her sons, now 15 and

“Kids, in particular, will do things that will get your attention, and I have found it’s just a matter of letting them know they are your top priority. If their needs aren’t met, what you’re doing is meaningless because in the end what you do is yes, for yourself, but also to give your kids the opportunities you never had.”

Asked what was the greatest reward of starting her business, Bajaj replied without hesitation: “I found myself.”

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