By The Book

The newly listed S Chand is staying future-ready by balancing its core strength of publishing with investments in edutech startups.

- Paramita Chatterjee

Himanshu Gupta has a particular fondness for his schooldays. Reason: The third-generation entrepreneur and managing director of publishing house S Chand Group grew up studying textbooks published by his family. “What’s exciting was that I knew in advance about all the books that would be launched in the market,” says Gupta, 38, as he settles down for a chat with Forbes India in the conference room of his south Delhi office which is stacked with board games and textbooks ranging from history and science to literature.

The excitement, however, did not spur any early interest in Gupta to join the company, founded by his grandfather Shyam Lal Gupta in 1939 in a nondescript bylane of old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk as a part of a nationalistic effort to publish Indian authors in colonial times. (It was later managed by Gupta’s father, Ravindra Kumar, and uncle Rajendra Kumar.)

“Although publishing has been our bread and butter, I was not too serious about the business in the initial years,” recalls Gupta, who had brief flings with diverse entrepreneurial ventures after passing out from school in 1996. “While in college [he is a commerce grad from Delhi University], I started something in herbal cosmetics. Then there was the dotcom era in which I created a website [focussed on education]. Finally I discontinued both and couldn’t escape the family business.”

Gupta joined S Chand in early 2000, taking on a leadership role in 2006 after his father’s retirement. In the decade since, he has grown into the position, working closely with his brother-in-law Dinesh Jhunjhunwala, who is executive director. Together, they have adopted diverse strategies to stay ahead of competition. “While I am more aggressive, Dineshji is calm, composed and extremely mature. We operate as a team and that always helps attain bigger goals,” says Gupta.