Two months after he was elevated as the Managing Director of Bajaj Electricals, Anant Bajaj died on Friday evening due to cardiac arrest. Bajaj 41, was the only scion of industrialist Shekhar Bajaj. Anant had started working for his father’s firm as a sales trainee at the age of 19.

Anant was known to be a technology geek and loved experimenting with new tech platforms to find solutions to daily life problems. One of the things he was testing on himself was a self-healing polymer. “Can you imagine a world where you will not require medicines to heal a wound? The technology already exists, but it is not available commercially yet. However, I have already tested it,” Bajaj had said in a media interview recently adding that the polymer was injected into him to track what's going on in his body through an app on his phone.

Born to Shekhar and Kiran Bajaj on 18 May 1977 in Mumbai, Anant had a degree in Commerce from HR College, Mumbai and a postgraduate diploma from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research.

He started his career as Project co-ordinator in the year 1999 and was responsible for setting up the Rs 450 million High Mast Manufacturing and Galvanizing Plant for the Company at Ranjangaon, near Pune. His interests varied from music, sports, travelling and wildlife conservation.

As an acknowledgement of his growing understanding of the intricacies of managerial duties, he was appointed as General Manager, Special Assignments, in 2005. Under his leadership, the exports arm, Bajaj International Pvt. Ltd. made successful forays into businesses as diverse as IT and Solar products. In February 2006, Anant was appointed to the Board of Bajaj Electricals Ltd. as Executive Director and as the Joint Managing Director on April 01, 2012.

“He coined the term FMEG (Fast Moving Electrical Goods) company for Bajaj Electricals. His entire focus was on deploying cutting-edge technologies to create next-generation appliances. He also got the entire organisation on board with IoT analytics – a move that he believed will drive product development and create better offerings,” said a company executive.

For example, Bajaj Electricals is working on developing control of Bajaj products through Amazon’s voice command Alexa, using an app.

His demise at such a young age sent shock waves through the corporate and political world. Milind Deora in tweet said “Shocked & deeply saddened by the untimely death of my friend & classmate Anant Bajaj. Life is so precious - let’s love one another, live each day, reach out to each other & be kind to each other.”

The key question now facing the family would be on who would lead Bajaj Electricals. The Bajaj Group traces its history back 90 years to freedom fighter and founder Jamnalal Bajaj. The various businesses are owned by Rahul Bajaj, along with Shekhar, Madhur and Niraj. Rahul’s son Rajiv manages the group’s auto business.

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