Youngest CEO in the world from India

Meet 14-year-old Sindhuja Rajaraman, the CEO of Seppan, a Chennai-based animation company launched only in October last. And we’re not kidding. A ninth-standard student, she was adjudged the fastest 2D and 3D animator by software lobby Nasscom at the Gaming and Animation Conclave 2010 at Hyderabad. Interestingly, she is also a brand envoy of design software major Corel Software .

As head of this nascent firm, today she may give tough competition to some of the top CEOs when it comes to taking business decisions, that too quickly. But where did she start?

“It all started five years back when I wanted to take my mind off studies and do something new. My father, who is a cartoonist, instilled in me the passion to do animation and taught me the entire process,” she says. “I have tried my luck with animation even before I started learning it prossfessionally. I did my first mini animation project when I was in sixth standard. It was on ‘do not disturb animals’,” she recalls.

Early Months

After a few amateur moves last year, Sindhuja made a Guinness Book record attempt for the fastest animation film. The project was for Exnora, a Chennai-based non-profit organisation, to mark the occasion of 10-10-2010. “I created a three-minute animation film in 10 hours. It has gone to the Guinness team and I’m still waiting for them to announce the final results,” she says proudly.

Things started rolling right after that when Sindhuja was offered by First Planet to work as Seppan’s chief executive. With an investment of Rs 10 lakh, First Planet seeded the firm and the entire thing happened within a day. “I did not even know what a CEO meant that time,” she says. And in a shirt span, she is handling three projects – Virtual Street, Garbo.in and First Planet.

The Virtual Street project is about Thyagaraj Nagar, the shopping hub of Chennai where Seppan plans to showcase the entire area through animation while Garbo.in is a job for a Chennai based NGO to promote waste segregation methods.
The third project is for her parent company. “It is a small animation film for freshers who want to join a new company. The film would speak about company etiquette and other things that a fresher should know,” she noted.

source: Economic Times