Punit Renjen, a top-tier manager at Deloitte Consulting, has overseen explosive growth in mergers and acquisitions. He seems tailor-made for the complexity and intensity of his work. But he admits he "lucked into" consulting, choosing it without much forethought after completing his MBA.

"I would be naive and not entirely honest if I suggest that I knew [then] what a consulting career was about. I really didn’t," Renjen tells host Laura Schildkraut on "Information Technology Leaders." "I knew it was a stimulating and challenging environment, and that’s been absolutely true, but there’s so much more to consulting. It’s a very layered profession."

And lucrative. Renjen says he’s constantly surprised by his yearly earnings. But that’s not what drives Renjen, described by colleagues as an "adrenaline junkie." He loves his work. "I would do it for a tenth of what I make," he says.

"Information Technology Leaders," produced by the University of Washington’s School of Business, presents multi-faceted portraits of the people filling the top IT positions at major corporations such as Microsoft, Boeing, and AT&T Wireless Services. The revealing interviews show that personal characteristics often play an important role in the unpredictable career trajectories of this industry.

Renjen’s history reveals that it wasn’t so much luck, but hard work, that determined his success. Born in India, he admired his father, a self-made man who started a factory and a private school after becoming an instant refugee when his hometown (in what is now Pakistan) was not partitioned by the British as part of India. Renjen learned to fend for himself in boarding school. He acquired his self-confidence in his first career job at a multinational corporation, which he landed after completing a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Earning a Rotary Scholarship to study in the United States in 1984 was, Renjen says, "the best thing that ever happened to me." At Williamette University, he was at a slight language disadvantage--he recorded lectures so that he wouldn’t miss a word--but his previous work experience gave him an edge. Upon graduation, he aggressively pursued several firms for a job. Portland-based Touche Ross offered the best salary.

He may not have known what he was getting into, but Renjen adjusted and thrived. While ascending the corporate ladder, he began to focus on re-engineering: helping corporations reorganize to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction. Now a common feature of American corporate life, it was a new field then. Renjen developed his firm’s re-engineering service from scratch.

Many of those skills later transferred to managing mergers and acquisitions, an even more tumultuous process. The experience of Touche Ross merging with Deloitte Haskins and Sells--taught Renjen that the changes can be traumatic. He started working in this area at a time when three-fourths of merged companies fail to deliver value. But Renjen was undaunted. "One of my clients eloquently said, ’It isn’t rocket science.’ It really isn’t, from a conceptual, intellectual basis," he says. "What makes this complex is that you’ve got to get a large body of work done in a compressed time frame, relying on the same managers who are running your enterprise on a day-to-day basis."

Such rational calm has helped many of his clients through the chaos of change. Very little causes Renjen high stress; after so many years of consulting, he has become "comfortable with being uncomfortable."

Since making partner at Deloitte--a commitment Renjen compares to getting married--he isn’t tempted to leave. He loves the culture of the company, rated by Fortune magazine as one of the best places to work.

But it’s Renjen himself, not his colleagues or his company, who will keep his career interesting. "I set pretty high goals for myself. They’re usually higher than what most other people set for me," he says. "And I’m very driven to achieve them."

Produced By: Christopher Redner

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