Ajit Someshwar has federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's ear, but he would also like the immigration ministry to act on some of his recommendations.

Someshwar, CEO of Toronto-based technology and staffing firm CSI Consulting Inc., is a member of a high-profile economic advisory committee that's advising Flaherty on ways to offset the global recession.

In other words, the chartered accountant, who specializes in insurance and previously advised the Ontario government on auto coverage, is out to prevent an economic collapse.

But Someshwar also wants the immigration ministry to help Canada capitalize on its ties with his native India and open our doors to more professionals.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
CSI Consulting CEO Ajit Someshwar has the ear of the finance minister as an advisory committee member.

"We have several instances of doctors driving cabs - or ultimately going back," says Someshwar. "We can line up - from one end of the street to the other - people who are working way below what they're supposed to be doing."

Someshwar aims to boost Canada's productivity through the economic advisory council and more immigrants.

"If we want more productivity in this country, if we want to add more value to the economy, then we must make more use of the immigrants that we are getting in," he says.

His ideas include granting Canadian professional designations to immigrants by training them in their home countries or via distance learning and by allowing them to complete short-term qualification programs at universities here.

"It takes a lot of moral courage for the government to force this down," he says. "Otherwise, we have a lopsided immigration (system) that has the right intention but totally wrong results."

Fortunately, he didn't have to worry about his credentials when he arrived from Mumbai in the late 1980s ...

1. What are your parents' backgrounds?

"They came from a small town on the west coast of India call Mangalore, which is now a big city. They migrated from Mangalore to Mumbai in the early '40s - my father did - in search for a job after finishing his studies. He took up a secretarial-type job initially and then rose through sheer hard work to be a consul for Sweden in Mumbai. He also got into several businesses and did a tremendous amount of social work in India, so much so that a senior's home is being dedicated in his name this month. My mother was a housewife. Unfortunately, she expired when I was 13. My father did not remarry and he brought up four young sons when he was doing so many other things."

2. How did your mother's death affect you?

"My father, a tremendous guy, somehow filled in the vacuum. He was very empathetic, very sympathetic. He had great instincts. He would never interfere in what we did. At the same time, he knew exactly what we were up to."

3. What was your childhood dream?

"My first childhood dream was to be an air force pilot and that got squashed when I felt that the competition would be too high. The second one was to become a chartered accountant, and I became a chartered accountant twice over" 4. Why did you complete an accounting designation in India and another one in the U.K.?

"It was funny. I did my accounting designation with a firm in India that, after I qualified, got their international designation status with a big city-based firm in the U.K. called Spicer and Pegler (now part of Deloitte and Touche). Having done the international affiliation, I applied for an international transfer - which I got. Then I said to myself: It may be advisable to get the U.K. qualification, because the U.K. qualification is much more accepted, although I must tell you the Canadian qualification is as tough or probably even tougher, because the pass rates are in the same digits."

5. How did you end up moving to Canada and joining KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne?

"In 1987, August, just when my son was about a year old, we decided to migrate to be closer to my brothers in the States. One of my good friends had migrated to Canada. He said, 'Listen, why don't you apply for permanent residency in Canada?' ... This way, I would also be close to my family. The whole thing was very short and sweet. When I came to Toronto, I was bowled over by the city and its cleanliness. I had never seen anything like this before. Then from here, I went to Boston, and from Boston to Houston and then Houston to L.A. and then back to Connecticut - all (the time checking) insurance companies, because I was an insurance specialist from the U.K. with Spicer and Pegler. They were good opportunities but I just did not like those cities. I had gone for one interview with KPMG in the morning just before lunch. I had lunch with Coopers and Lybrand the very same day. I had stopped over to do some shopping. Before I reached back to where I was staying, Coopers had already sent me an offer by courier.

I couldn't believe it ... That was the demand in those days for people coming in from England with international qualifications. I did not get an offer from Peat Marwick ... I called the partner. He apologized and said some people had gone on vacation and they would meet the very next day ... and they would send me a fax. And that's what happened - and that offer was better than Coopers' offer. The rest is history."

6. What was your role in your firm's review of Ontario's auto insurance system?

"My role was to build the various models insurance. There are various degrees of public insurance. The B.C. model is different from the Quebec model and the Quebec model is different from the Minnesota model or the California model. So my job was to head up a team of people and ... say, 'This is what would be the effective cost savings for the average consumer under these different models of public insurance.' " 7. What's your view on private vs. public auto insurance?

"It should always have been in the private sector. The NDP government were thinking about (the idea of public auto insurance) and they just backed out of it. Insurance should be competitive. We should have enough insurance companies for the market. However, we have got to make sure that ... (there is) some legislation to ensure that it doesn't become a field day for lawyers and (fraud-prone) practitioners."

8. How did you end up moving to CIBC?

"In 1992, I had to make a decision. Either I went in for a partnership or I had to leave and join some other firm. I had no intention of becoming an auditor for life or a consultant. So I met with CIBC and jumped ... and I loved it."

9. How was CSI conceived?

"When I was vice-president of operations, planning and analysis at CIBC Insurance, the project management office reported to me. I saw the issue of most projects not coming in on time and for the money that we said, so the cost element would always be overrun, and not delivering the value that we had initially scoped. I said, 'Wow, this is an issue where, I think, if we can make a change right there, there is a lot of value to be brought about.' I also knew that there were huge demands in the market for consultants who understand, from a business point of view and a limitation point of view, the whole issue of Y2K ... Y2K was a big boon for us. But Y2K, in early 2001, had pretty much fizzled off. Then we had the challenge of: What do we do? I started an insurance-technology solutions company called iter8 Inc. in late 2000-2001. This was basically providing modules for insurance companies for faster delivery of their applications and a faster means of changing the structure of their applications as well. There's a lot of research and development in that company. It's a success story. It's a small company, it does only about $5 million in revenues - these are licence fees and professional consulting - but there's a great future for that."

10. What were the challenges after the Y2K boon?

"It meant a lot of displaced consultants, because their skills were not a match to what was needed in the market. You couldn't retrain for that quickly because when companies come to us, they want senior-level resources, not entry-level resources. Slowly, we regrouped.

We were looking at business only from the private-sector perspective. But then, slowly, we (became) vendors to the Ontario government. We are vendors to the federal government and vendors to other provinces, too ... We are much bigger now than we were before."

11. How have you achieved consistent growth?

"Growth is possible only if the effort and the planning exercise (are) done correctly. In the planning process, we determine our markets. Knowing what it is we need to achieve the growth is absolutely critical. After the planning process, then we know it's more or less a hands-off approach from me to the managers and then some kind of reviews."

12. Your company accesses Indian operations a fair bit. How do you respond to people who say that Canadian companies should not outsource IT from offshore operations?

"I'm sympathetic to that point of view ... We don't do major outsourcing work in India. Our company in India markets to Indian clients ... and they also act as a resource to our operations. But that doesn't mean that we carry out major outsourcing IT operations there. They do odd jobs for my offices (in Canada), but it is not a huge operation (in India). It is only about 35 people. One must understand it is extremely difficult to put together a very large group of IT-skilled people, especially when those skills are kind of outdated. But India has the ability and the talent to provide those pools of skilled labour.

"Canada is a small country ... It's not just (about) cost."

13. How were you contacted about joining Jim Flaherty's economic advisory council?

"I got a call from Jim and then he posed this question to me: 'Are you willing to serve your country?' I said, 'Of course, Jim.' Then he goes, 'So you're on the economic advisory council.' Ha ha! I thought that was pretty funny. I almost thought he was going to send me to the war in Afghanistan."

14. What has the council done?

"The council has had four meetings. Each meeting lasts for about three hours or so. We bring to bear our experience and our knowledge of various issues. Obviously, these four meetings were devoted pretty much to the stimulus package. The council members are, generally, non-partisan."

15. What have you recommended?

"We came up with several ideas to prevent this economy from going into a deep slump. It's very important for us to show that Canada is prepared to spend money - but in control. These were operative words used all the time. We've got to always know that we can come out of it at a good point in time ... We can't just spend foolishly out of the coffers of the country. Spend wisely, spend it with focus and show that the spend happens quickly in the cycle. Show all the way through so that Canadian customer confidence does not drop to levels whereby the spending will be inconsequential."

16. What has the government done in response to your recommendations?

"It's difficult to say (whose advice they acted on). But all the major programs that the minister put in this budget were topics of serious discussion with the council."

17. What will it take for Canada to emerge from the recession without suffering severe long-term consequences?

"It'll take a lot of good luck, really, and it will take a sensible president down south, because the percentage of Canada's GDP that's involved in the north-south trade is phenomenal. That percentage must not diminish significantly, because if it does, then we are pulled into a recession by our neighbours. From the Canadian perspective, the two percent (of GDP) this year and the 1.4 percent next year spend is a very good spend, I think. It's a liberal spend from a Conservative government."

18. How are you trying to promote Indo-Canadian relations?

"You've touched on my current passion ... The reason we formed the Canada India Foundation was actually to strengthen relationships between India and Canada. I believe very firmly that Canada has what India needs and India has what Canada needs. India has the need for huge technology and infrastructure development, and Canada has those advantages. India has a phenomenal energy need and Canada is the only place that has an end-to-end solution for nuclear energy, right from the oilsands of Athabasca (in Alberta) to (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. reactors).

India has huge budgets from a huge foreign-exchange process, and companies that have put in over $12 billion in Canada over the last two years. We are in a perfect situation to get the relationship on to a totally different planet as it were - make it extremely strategic. Most Canadians have still not fully figured out the two faces of India. There is one face that is still in the old silent days of India and the other, emerging, face, which is emerging at a pretty fast rate. The new India - the global India."

19. To what do you attribute your success as an immigrant in Canada?

"Professional accreditation is a major issue. When we invite Indians here, we base their (immigration) points on their professional qualifications and the need for those kind of individuals. It's all a way of determining whether this kind of person is of value-add to the Canadian economy or not. Which is the right way of doing it. But the problem is, the person lands at Vancouver or Toronto and then that's it. He doesn't know where to go ... His qualifications are useless! He doesn't want to start again. His money runs out in two or three months. Guess what he does? He goes and works at Loblaw's or he gets a licence and drives a taxi. We have to force a professional-accreditation program (to recognize their credentials) ... There has to be this process of Canadianizing foreign qualifications and removing the stigma of overseas qualifications. They've got no meaning, so why get them in the first place?" 20. What will you do when you're not running CSI?

"Oh, I'm going to be a mall bum. That's what I do in my life. I want to, every day, go to a different mall and do window shopping. There are so many malls! No. I will be doing more social work."

CSI Consulting Inc.

* Brass: Ajit Someshwar, CEO; Matty Narsimhan, vice-president of operations; C. Amitabh, director of enterprise applications; Charles McDougall, senior management consultant.

* Profile: CSI provides technology consulting and staffing solutions for the private and public sectors. It manages clients' projects on its own or helps other companies execute various projects. Other firms that fall under the CSI Group include CSI E-Secure, an IT security and risk-management consultancy; Ottawa-based knowledge and management consulting company Knowledge Genus; Mentor Pixel, which partners with large telecommunications companies; Ottawa-based consulting and training firm Bates Project Management Inc.; and India-based CSI Software Private Ltd., which does project management work and supports other firms within the CSI Group. Antex Designs Inc., a custom drapery company, also falls within the group.

* Stats: CSI Consulting's parent group has approximately 170 employees. CSI Group's technology-related revenues last year were $60 million, says Someshwar, while iter8 generated an additional $5 million and Antex Designs produced $9 million.

* Corporate Structure: CSI Consulting and all other companies within CSI Group are private firms.

* Website: www.csican.com * HQ: Suite 1820, 150 York Street, Toronto, M5H 3S5 * Phone: (416) 364-6376

Ajit Someshwar

* Title: CEO, CSI Consulting Inc.

* Born/raised/age: Mumbai, India/53.

* Education: Someshwar obtained an honours bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Mumbai and chartered accountant designations from institutes in India and England and Wales.

* Family: Married, one 22-year-old son.

* Career: Someshwar worked as a chartered accountant, specializing in insurance, in India and England with international firm Spicer and Pegler before emigrating to Canada and settling in Toronto in the late 1980s. He served as senior manager of accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne's insurance practice from 1987-1992 and then joined CIBC Insurance as vice-president of operations, planning and analysis. In 1992, he formed his own company, CSI Consulting, and now heads several companies under the CSI brand as well as iter8, an IT firm that specializes in insurance-related applications. While heading CSI Consulting, he also serves as CEO of companies that fall under CSI Group.

* Moonlighting: Last fall, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty appointed Someshwar to a national economic advisory committee that includes several CEOs. He also sits on the board of Export Development Canada, serves as founding national convener of the Canada India Foundation, and holds a board position with iter8, an insurance-based IT company that he helped create. He formerly served as the president of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce.

* Passions: Indo-Canadian relations, community service, golf, cricket.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)