Patron of Sports & Music, Film Maker, Cricketer, Serial Entrepreneur | Shekhar Gokhale

A mega entrepreneur who defies Aaker

The Father of Modern Branding David Aaker guides, “The biggest mistake any company can make is to broaden the appeal of a brand when they should be trying to ‘deepen’ it. You need to be strong somewhere rather than weak everywhere.” Interestingly Chandrashekhar is a personal brand who proves to be a rare exception to this rule. He is someone who is strong in many things concurrently. He is a highly successful and exceptional entrepreneur who has created a mammoth business entity and market leader called Astute Group along with 13 other founder directors. With over 3000 employees, 14 regional offices, umpteen local offices, and serving over 80 lending institutions across the country, Astute is a giant enterprise helmed by its Co-founder and Managing Director Chandrashekhar. However Astute is just one jewel in Chandrashekhar’s crown.

In addition to Astute, Chandrashekhar is also the founder of Kalp Fintech, a fledgling but ambitious software product company which has created a pioneer credit risk management platform called Loanguard.  Loanguard is changing the way credit risk management is done by the financial world. They already have some of the industry’s most marquee names like Bajaj Auto Finance, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC, Tata Capital, SBFC, KVB Bank etc as their clients.

In the olden days, art and sports was the realm of the royalty; the kings and the nobles. However in modern times, a lion’s share of this role has been voluntarily undertaken by the world of business. In the 1980s, an uplifting campaign was released by Tata Steel which showcased their corporate philanthropy projects without a single mention of its primary business. These projects ranged from hospitals to sports and so on. The campaign was a pulsating embodiment of the company & the group’s vision and ended with the line “We also make steel.” This hallmark of a campaign was conceived by the HTA team with the support of Russi Mody, the legendary CEO of Tata Steel. While it’s normally the case, it is not mandatory that only the large and the mighty should provide patronage to art, music, and sports. Chandrashekhar has done much more than his share.

In 2014, Chandrashekhar started Antarnad Foundation along with his friend Amit Gokhale to patronize music. Antarnad has conducted 60 musical shows to date across different cities in Maharashtra. Antarnad has worked with most of the leading artists in the country. In 2016, they hosted a very large music concert with Shreya Ghoshal in Pune. The show was attended by 5000 music lovers.

While Antarnad Foundation’s work is an exemplary contribution to music, Chandrashekhar took up yet another super ambitious project. Movie production is a highly risky business, but Chandrashekhar has always been a braveheart. Only two type of people venture into film making. First are those who are super rich and wish to produce a movie as a hobby by consuming a fraction of their wealth. The second are those who have loads of black money and do not know what to do of it. Chandrashekhar doesn’t belong to either. Lack of experience in the field, limited capital (all of which being hard earned), and the inherent risks did not deter Chandrashekhar from embarking onto one of the biggest rollercoasters of his life. He decided to produce the film as soon as he heard the concept from famous classical music singer Rahul Deshpande and the young & dynamic director Nipun Dharmadhikari. Collaboration of these three highly talented individuals translated into one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in Marathi film history called Me Vasantrao; a biography of the classical Hindustani music maestro Vasantrao Deshpande. The movie was released in 2022 and has won many coveted awards including two national awards. The film was also nominated in IFFI under various award categories. The movie had a 104-day long theatrical run in City Pride-Pune.

Chandrashekhar has been an ace cricketer. In 1986-87, he was selected for Maharashtra’s Under-19 cricket team for the Cooch Behar Trophy. As a young and promising cricketer from Nashik, Chandrashekhar was planning a serious career in cricket. Unfortunately in 1987, he had to undergo a lower back surgery, and there ended his career. Since it was hard for Chandrashekhar to refrain from the game, he started focusing on cricket coaching. This alternate career in cricket helped him meet many great players and organizers. A chance meeting with the famous cricketer Milind Gunjal further developed into a good and long partnership in the form of Milind Gunjal Sports Academy.

As an organizer, Chandrashekhar earned international exposure by being on the organizing committee responsible for the men and women’s India-Australia ODI matches. Maharashtra Cricket Association had also appointed him as a committee member for conducting the India Under-19 cricket championship. In January 2000, he was honoured by an invitation from the Maharashtra Cricket Association to undergo a training camp for coaches conducted by the leading coach of Australian Cricket Academy Sir Frank Tyson, fondly known as ‘Typhoon’. Having attended the camp, he appeared for level 1 cricket coaching exam as per the norms of Australian Cricket Academy and stood 2nd in the state. He was immediately appointed as the Assistant Coach for Maharashtra’s Ranji Trophy team. That was a dream-come-true moment for Chadrashekhar.

How would you imagine a man with so many talents? It’s natural for such a person to have some air of superiority and arrogance. Contrary to the expectation, what wins our hearts is Chandrashekhar’s absolutely down-to-earth and affable nature. A virtue that I admire the most is a combination of greatness and humility, and this mega-entrepreneur is a perfect embodiment of this virtue.

Website : www.astute.co.in
Email : c.gokhale@astute.co.in