An uncertain visa situation prompted Amrit Acharya to leave a well-paying job in the US and return to India in January 2018. What followed was a venture that would grow into Zetwerk, a business-to-business (B2B) manufacturing company operating across sectors such as electronics, renewable energy, aerospace and defence.
An IIT Madras graduate with an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, Acharya had worked at ITC before joining McKinsey & Company in San Francisco in September 2016. Entrepreneurship, however, was not part of his original career plan.
In an interview with Forbes India, Acharya said his decision to leave McKinsey was not driven by dissatisfaction with the company. "McKinsey was great," he recalled.
The uncertainty surrounding his US visa, however, meant he had to consider working from different countries. After spending six months in Australia, the prospect of moving to another country for a similar period prompted him to reconsider his plans.
His then-girlfriend, now wife, offered a different perspective on the situation. "Uncertainty is not a bad thing necessarily," she told him. The couple eventually returned to India, where Acharya reconnected with his IIT Madras classmate Srinath Ramakkrushnan.