A LIFE IN SALES & LEADERSHIP
Decades of storytelling, a lifetime of listening.
Over fifty years navigating the Indian pharmaceutical landscape — building brands like Dettol, Nitrocontin and Betadine, mentoring leaders, and finding the poetry in the everyday.
ABOUT
From the lanes of Allahabad to the boardrooms of pharma.
Arun Kapoor was born in Allahabad — the city of three rivers, of poets and prime ministers, of evening walks along the Ganga and the unhurried clatter of Civil Lines. Long before he learned the language of detailing and territory plans, he learned the older languages: Hindi and English, music and silence, the rhythm of a well-told story.
“बेचना सिखाने से पहले सुनना सिखाओ।” — Before you teach selling, teach listening.
CAREER
The companies that shaped him — and that he, in his quiet way, shaped back.
Brand-building years
Reckitt & Colman
Led field initiatives that took a household name into hospitals, pharmacies and the everyday vocabulary of trust.
Leadership tenure
Modi-Mundipharma
Built specialist franchises with a blend of clinical rigour and human warmth — the kind of selling that earns referrals.
Senior leadership
Win-Medicare
Mentored sales teams across the Indian heartland — turning ordinary territories into extraordinary numbers.
Five decades in all
Other Indian & MNC pharma houses
A career-long study of what makes people buy, what makes teams stay, and what makes brands endure.
STORIES
Field notes, after fifty years.
The Hawkers of Hazratganj
How a chance evening walk in Lucknow taught a young medical rep more about persuasion than any sales manual ever did.
Detailing in the Dust
On the long, hot afternoons of touring inner-Bihar — and the country doctor who reshaped how we thought about a brand.
Lead from the Front
Why I always insisted on making the first ten field visits of every new launch myself — even when I was the boss.
Hindi, English, and the Space Between
The art of switching tongues mid-sentence — and what it taught me about meeting customers where they truly live.
A Letter to Young Medical Reps
Six things I wish someone had told me when I was twenty-three and clutching my first sample bag in Allahabad.
The Music in a Sales Meeting
On rhythm, pause and silence — and why the best sales reviews feel less like an interrogation and more like a raga.