Atlanta Spotlight | Rocky Gupta

By Staff Writer Atlanta Trend

• Mar 01, 2012

Rakesh ‘Rocky’ Gupta was always fascinated with numbers and problem solving, even as a small child. By the age of 13, he was managing all of his family company accounts for their printing and office supply business in India. “I loved the way everything could fit together to tell a coherent story,” he said, “I loved the logic of it.” When not making sense of accounts payable and receivable, Rocky could be found playing with his friends any game of chance that also required skill, like Monopoly, in which he usually ran the others into bankruptcy.
Born in Calcutta in 1966, Rocky worked at his uncle’s company until completing 10th grade when it was decided that he should join his mother and father in the US. They had already emigrated a few of years before. He encountered two challenges immediately. “First,” he said, “it was a cultural shock. Everything was more relaxed and seemed undisciplined, even chaotic.” His second challenge was where he would fit in academically. Although scheduled for the 11th grade in India, his test scores showed that he was ready for college. It was finally decided, having landed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in March of 1983, that he would join the 12th grade class in April and then graduate at the end of May. This made Rocky immediately eligible for college and he started at LSU in September. It was at LSU that he got the name Rocky. His friends got tired of him correcting them for mispronouncing his proper name of Rakesh so it was finally decided that a nickname would be a good compromise. Also, he liked the story about the come from behind underdog from Philadelphia.
Amidst all this activity, Rocky is proud of the fact that he was also always working. “I started at the McDonald’s in Baton Rouge on my second day in the US,” he said. At 17, he began as a crew member and became the store manager within 18 months. By the time he was 19 and in his second year at LSU, Rocky was making $70,000 per year. It was then that he decided to take a break from his studies. “I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I was young and 70K was a lot of money in the mid eighties, especially for a kid.”
By 1991, Rocky’s friends had convinced him to move to Atlanta and go back to school. He left the McDonald’s and entered Georgia State. Ever enterprising, Rocky decided to support his way through the rest of college by starting a business. South Atlanta Home Care was born upon his arrival to Atlanta. Run out of his garage, Rocky supplied oxygen in tanks to people who required it handling all billing himself, usually through Medicare. Again very successful, he made $80,000 to 100,000 per year and then sold the company for a profit upon graduation. Rocky took this profit and invested it in a liquor store where he had management oversight but no day to day operational role. 
It was at this point that Rocky got acquainted with computers. Accepting a position with Compass Management & Leasing, the facilities management arm of Equitable Real Estate, he helped developed a software tool that measured 17 data points of site performance. This led to major savings and Rocky witnessed firsthand the power of IT as his system became the lynchpin for managing all Equitable Real Estate worldwide. Hitting the road, he trained company engineers across 50 US cities, Brazil and the UK. The system also earned an Arthur Anderson Award for Best Business Practices.
Following this success, Rocky was recruited into a card payments company based in Atlanta called Nova Information Systems. He says, “I knew nothing about the payments industry at the time but soon discovered that it was an exciting, fast paced business.” Nova, which is now Elavon and owned by US Bank, was much smaller when Rocky joined. “In 1997 we only had a small facility in Atlanta and a very small facility in Knoxville,” he says, “and the Knoxville location was a former furniture store.” When Rocky left Nova/Elavon in 2008, the company had become multinational and its US business had doubled - it had become one of the largest payment processors in the world. Rocky had a team of 40 people working under him in the US and Ireland. He’s proud of his contributions to the company’s success, specifically citing the building of data marts within the data warehouse and the building of an automated job scheduling tool. Most of all, he was glad to be part of a team that put in place a major competitive advantage for their company – a global view towards IT including a single payments platform.
IN 2008, Rocky was lured into a startup prepaid card company. But the beginning of the Great Recession was a poor time to do fundraising especially when many of the world’s largest financial players were themselves in trouble. He stuck with the company for almost two years before accepting a position with CA Corporation, the $4 billion software company where he successfully delivered projects for some of the world’s largest companies. “Being on the vendor side of the table was new to me,” Rocky says, “but I enjoyed it.” His job at CA allowed him to work with C-Level executives at Coca-Cola, Cox, Alere Healthcare and many others. He is grateful for the experience and the exposure.
Then, in 2011, Rocky was presented with an opportunity in the payments space at WorldPay.. It was purchased by private equity firms Advent International and Bain Capital for $2.7 billion on December 1, 2010. The next year, Rocky was invited to join the team in IT.
WorldPay, Rocky says, has always been an interesting company. The dominant payment processor in Europe, it also has significant business in the US. He believes the company has a wonderful chance to build something great. “I believe that WorldPay is poised for greatness,” Rocky says. “We have the right focus and the right people to take this company to the next level.” Many of the IT executives at WorldPay are Nova/Elavon alumni, including Eric Toivonen, the Global Chief Technology Officer. Rocky has responsibility for IT Services Management which includes Application Support, Stratus Support, DataComm, 24X7 Operations and Incident, Problem and Change Management. 
When asked what is the most important thing that people should know about him he is quick to say it is the fact of his taking enormous pride in everything that he does and being family oriented – having a keen sense of accomplishment and a good family life are key, he believes. “One thing that most people wouldn’t know about me that’s kind of interesting is that I have an arranged marriage,” he says. “I met my wife for the first time exactly 24 days before the wedding.” Happily married for 17 years with a son and a daughter, Rocky credits his wife, Vibha, with doing an excellent job of running the family. “We make a great team,” he says. He is proud of her 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo and also that his son and daughter are proficient in martial arts as well.
Satisfied with the professional challenges before him now at WorldPay, Rocky reflects on the journey he has taken in the US from his first day of arrival in 1983: “I was lucky,” he says, “since I spoke English well, I encountered no prejudice and everyone was very friendly. I was able to get ahead and do well.” As for the initial cultural shock, Rocky now says “I quickly learned that what I had taken for lack of discipline or chaos was really the fermentation of a dynamic, vibrant society.” Opportunity is available for all, he believes – you decide what you want to do and then do it. “As a young man, Ronald Reagan decided ‘I think I’ll become a sports announcer,’ and became one. Next he said ‘I think I’ll become an actor,” and became one. Finally he said, ‘I think I should become a politician,’ and did that, too. He did pretty well at all three.” Rocky takes the point he is making personally - “some people think that exciting changes are only for a few people,” Rocky says, “but that’s not true. They’re available to everyone. I’m living proof.”
 
Secrets to Success:
I only have one. Tenacity. If you have passion, a desire to succeed and a good work ethic, you cannot fail.