Rohit Kapoor, vice chairman and CEO of ExlService Holdings, Inc. believes in preparing for whatever life may bring.

A private banker and a venture capitalist by profession, Kapoor was a former business head at Deutsche Bank and serviced clients in Europe, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. Among his expertise was managing venture capital and private equity investments of several ultra high net worth clients in start-up companies in the United States and Indian TMT sectors. It was while looking for good investments for his clients in the mid-90s that he studied and made some investments and due diligence in several information technology (IT) services companies.

“These companies were growing very rapidly, they were delivering true quality to their customers and there was a big shift taking place then in terms of outsourcing of IT Services from the US to India,” he recalled.

In April 1999, when the Internet “dotcom” boom took place, Kapoor and a group that included Vikram Talwar, then the CEO and managing director of Ernst & Young, incorporated Exl Service in the US.

“When we started, it was supposed to be an e-mail processing company and our hypothesis was fairly simple: it used to cost $3 to process an email in the US and we said we could do it for a dollar in India. So we would offer our customers $2, and they would get huge savings, we’d make a lot of money, and in a few years time we’d be on the beach, enjoying,” he said.

But almost a year later, the Internet dotcom bubble burst and companies outsourcing large volumes of email work collapsed. Kapoor and his group saw pricing come down very sharply. “From $2, it became a few cents per email. That’s when we realized that this was not a sustainable business model, and we had to shift towards domain-specific work with transformation capability,” Kapoor narrated.

While most companies folded up, his group was fortunate to have an investor who was also the chairman of Conseco, an insurance company based in Carmel, Indiana. In 2001, Exl was acquired by Conseco and operated as its wholly owned subsidiary. In November 2002, Oak Hill Capital Partners—a huge private equity firm based in New York—along with some members of the Exl senior management team which included Kapoor, bought back the company.

By that time, Exl Services was fast gaining reputation as one of the leading providers of outsourcing and transformation services. In 2006, the company was listed in the Nasdaq. Kapoor, who was then Exl president and chief financial officer, said that the offering was successful.

Today, the New York-based company primarily serves the needs of the Global 1000 companies from global delivery centers in the insurance and healthcare, utilities, banking and financial services, transportation and logistics, and travel sectors. Its outsourcing services include a full spectrum of business process management services such as transaction processing and finance and accounting services. Presently, Exl Service is in seven countries including India, Philippines and the US.

Kapoor said that Exl’s strength is in the insurance and healthcare services representing about 45-percent of their revenue.

“The focus on these two services has been right from the inception, when we were still part of Conseco,” he said.

This is also one of the main reasons why they chose to open in the Philippines in 2008. The country has a highly attractive and trained workforce that understands the healthcare industry in the US very well, he said.

“We’ve gone from a thousand Philippine employees last year, to one 1,800 this year, of which more than 800 are nurses and doctors,” he revealed.

The soft-spoken CEO said that they are forging ahead with increased optimism. For Kapoor, this also means a busier schedule. But he isn’t worried since he manages to balance work and family time. And he still has time for a relaxing round of golf, which replaced his earlier passion—squash. Perhaps he and his partner will also find time to enjoy heir success on the beach, as they had earlier dreamed.