361° Minds (361DM) was founded by Gopi, Ram, and Ritu in 2006, aspiring to change the way corporate training conventionally happened. The core objectives were to bring about higher learning retention & transfer, and showing measured results on the ground.
The founders have more than a decade of rich experience in Learning & Education field, touching wide spectrum of society – scientists, corporate professionals, business managers, CEOs, college students, teachers, parents, and school students – through their innovative and scientific programs.
After their very first 3 years of remarkable success, 361DM set a larger vision, and set out in a new direction. 361DM was re-founded in 2009. They saw Satya (Satya Narayanan), founder and chairman of the Career Launcher group, a long time friend and well-wisher, as their meta-founder in this new journey.
The team
As batchmates at BITS Pilani, the three struck a chord with each other and have remained good friends ever since. They walked their separate career paths for 15 years, and came together again in 2006. Gopi and Ritu have been entrepreneurs since 1997, and joined by Ram in 2006.
At 361DM, they understand each others’ strengths and limitations, and perfectly complement one another’s competencies. Today, the team functions with a near-perfect understanding and a strong wavelength match, with a focus on making ‘today better than yesterday’ in the world of learning & education.
Here’s a closer look at each of the founders...
Gopi:
At 361DM, principal facilitator, he heads learning & education initiatives, and sets vision & strategic direction for the company.
He loves working with people and connects with them easily. An inquisitive learner, he effortlessly understands his learners’ contexts and is very comfortable with diversity around him. He is process-driven, systematic and organized, who values his as well as others’ time. He’s a big fan of Mahatma Gandhi and Sachin Tendulkar for their life principles.
Gopi has facilitated corporate training sessions, consulted for companies on strategic matters, coached CEOs, conducted workshops for parents, and provided career guidance & mentoring for the youth. He is also a strategic advisor to corporates in visioning, goal setting, and execution interventions. An ace trainer and facilitator by flair, Gopi has personally worked with senior managers and corporate executives from over 100 organizations, before establishing his own enterprise.
He has been invited several times as keynote speaker on special occasions in corporates, research institutions, universities, colleges, and schools. For instance, he has addressed 30 senior scientists of India at NIAS (IISc Bangalore) on the topic of 'leading technocrats'.
Gopi’s prior experience in his corporate career spans sales & marketing, business establishment and management, organization development, and consulting since 1992.
He is a management graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, class of 1991.
Core competencies
- Ease of connecting with people
- Extremely strong in processes and systems
- Ability to understand the big picture / conceptual understanding
- Adeptness in facilitation and mentoring
- Flair in understanding complex business models
- Data analysis and making interconnections
- Contextualization to organization and its people
- Ability to analyze from multiple perspectives.
Personal Profile
- Avid reader of medico-psychology, philosophy, biographies, and journalistic and political writing
- Takes keen interest in psephology (forecasting and analysis of elections)
- Passionate about directorial aspects of theatre / dramatics – has acted, scripted, screen-played, and staged Tamil plays
- Enthusiastic follower of Indian and International politics, television journalism and movies
- Takes personal delight in mentoring people towards high performance and career building
Ritu:
At 361DM, she co-facilitates sessions and heads research initiatives, corporate communication, regulation, and quality management.
She has more of an academic bent, who likes to study and research. She likes to make deep observations on people behaviour, and is eager to bring about improvements in learner experience - programs, activities, interactions, interfaces etc. Perseverance, detailing, and nothing-but-the-best are a few terms that may aptly describe her attitudes in life.
Ritu has been actively involved in design & creation of learning processes and methodologies. She has been involved in designing, production, and delivery of learning programs and workshops. She has designed learning curriculum and material, tools and aids like simulations, activities, assessment tests, diagnostics, and practice exercises, for corporate learning programs in India and abroad. She looks after creative supervision for learning and business related material.
Ritu’s prior experience in her corporate career includes sales & marketing and business management, since 1992.
She is a management graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, class of 1991.
Core Competencies
- Comfortable with research and study-oriented functions
- Ability to perform tasks that demand detailing, precision, and perseverance
- Ability to create questionnaires, diagnostics, assessment tools, and learning aids
- Non-sequential thinker that helps in idea-generation and creativity
- Quality consciousness for the learners.
Personal Profile
- Likes to relax over sketching, painting, light reading, and solving crossword puzzles
- Cares a bit extra for the environment
- Gets curious about repairing articles, gadgets and machines
Ram:
At 361DM, he heads business development, business partner relationship, client relationship, and PR.
He is an all out outgoing person, makes friends easily and has deep rooted relationship with a diverse group of people across the globe. He is an ardent follower of sports, especially Cricket, and fosters a dream of enthusing and engaging youngsters to excel in the sport. He is especially passionate about parenting and takes out time for grooming children in his family and in society at large. He’s an avid listener of old Hindi songs and Ilayaraja songs in Tamil, and actually could get his singing pass through in a social group. He’s a big fan of Sachin Tendulkar, Zinedine Zidane and Michael Gross.
Ram has been involved in research projects, and scientific reliability and validation of their assessment tests and diagnostics. He also conducts inspiring workshops on personal wellness, specifically stress management for corporate managers. He has been playing crucial role in learner motivation sustenance and process closure in their leadership programs.
Ram has an invaluable prior experience of working with people from different nationalities, in the areas of business development, sales, marketing, and customer & partner relations since 1992. He has had wide exposure to work cultures across India and the Middle East. He specialized in product & service management that involves intensive training, coaching and mentoring of medical experts, healthcare leaders, senior executives and staff. He conducted several product- and sales-trainings for business associates during his stint in Abu Dhabi. He set up business units and run them hands-on for the 'critical' periods. He has also set up international franchise / dealer networks. He is a Pharma graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, class of 1991, and a post-graduate in Business and Healthcare Management.
Core Competencies
- Market study and need analysis
- Context gathering of the client organizations
- Business development and marketing processes
- Business partner relationship management
- Customer relationship management
- Networking and PR
Personal Profile
- Keen follower of sports; Plays most sport with an extraordinary flair
- Passionate about working in the areas of sports development in youngsters
- Has serious interest and focus on effective parenting
- Enjoys doing puzzles and problem-solving
- Follows music with keen interest and likes to sing
- Loves play time with children
Terence:
At 361DM, he heads higher education business.
He is a calm, easy going person who tends to grow in relationships stronger and surer. Has a wealth of friends in every walk of life. A teetotaler, but is absolutely at ease and enthusiastic in networking gatherings. Two most passionate everyday aspects are his work and family. Loves a variety of food and would be able to advise the best place to eat 'any kind of food'.
Terence has more than 16 years of experience in handling large education and training projects. Has steered IT education, financial education and higher education in addition to handling manpower solutions representing India’s leading IT training giants.He was instrumental in setting up learning centers through the partner model for various training organizations across the country. With strong relationship building skills, he has helped organizations retain their partners and work with them in new projects and initiatives.
With a masters in Business administration and a Honours Diploma in software engineering, has also worked on developing software applications for Institutions and SMEs during early days of his career.
Core Competencies
- Identifying new opportunities in education business and develop business models around them
- Business development and client acquisitions
- Channel sales and business partner relationship
- Business analysis and data based research
- Customer relation and retention
Personal Profile
- Loves traveling
- Very passionate about trekking and forest adventures
- Volleyball, has captained super senior teams in school and college days
• The founders have more than a decade of rich experience in Learning & Education arena touching wide spectrum of society- scientists, corporate professionals, business managers, CEOs, college students, teachers, parents, and school students.
• 361DM was founded by Gopi, Ram, and Ritu in 2006...
When something traverses 360 degrees, it goes round a full circle but it also comes to where it started. Mathematically, 360 degrees is also 0 degrees - reason enough why 360° is not enough...
• Conducting special purpose seminars /workshops for college students, school students at NO COST to them.
• Conducting Parenting Workshops in schools, society at NO COST to them
Born in 2006 with a simple yet hard-to-achieve goal of putting leadership knowledge to work among corporate managers, 361DM has had remarkable accomplishments in its beginning years itself.
