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Who's who: Aravinda Korala

Those who work with Aravinda Korala know that his passion for excellence might mean an odd-hours phone call from the KAL CEO, who has quietly created a global software giant in 12 years.

January 8, 2002

For clients and employees of KAL, one of the leading software developers for the ATM and kiosk industries, it's no surprise to answer the phone at an odd hour and hear Aravinda Korala's voice, anxious to talk about his latest brainstorm. If Korala has an idea, he needs to talk about it. Immediately.

"He gets thoughts on his brain that he wants to talk about right now," said Steve Hensley, KAL's executive vice president for sales, whose home base is near Cincinnati, five time zones away from Korala's home in Scotland. "I might be working on a Saturday, and if I respond to an e-mail, the phone rings."

Mike Halpern, NCR's managing partner, kiosk solutions, said that on several evenings he's picked up his home phone in Dayton, Ohio, surprised to hear Korala bursting with excitement about a project.

"It's 9 o'clock at night, so I know it's 2 or 3 in the morning over there," Halpern said. "I can just see him at his kitchen table, puzzling over something, when he should be getting some sleep."

KAL's Aravinda Korala at his company's booth at the BAI show.

Korala readily admits to the occasional surprise calls to associates, and to an almost obsessive striving for quality in his work. The result is a company respected throughout the ATM and kiosk industries for software that works and solves real business problems. The 12 -year-old company, started by Korala in his home in Edinburgh, enjoyed growth of 20 percent annually from 1995 to 1999, and then jumped its revenues another 50 percent in 2000. It is used on thousands of ATMs and self-service applications throughout the world.

KAL, for now, is privately held, though Korala raised $3.5 million in venture capital last summer and says his long-term goal is to take the company public.

"He is absolutely the best at bringing technology to everyday business problems," said Halpern, adding that Korala's software solution for cellular phone bill paying is a great example. "His process allowed us to get this out there and it stuck. It works, and customers rely on them."

International Affairs

If there's a global flavor to business at KAL, it comes honestly. Korala is a native of Sri Lanka, a small island nation off the coast of India. The product of a close family, his parents, a brother and sister now live in Sydney, Australia. He has personally recruited a staff of engineers with diverse backgrounds and ethnic roots. A partial list of hometowns of KAL staff includes Paris, Stuttgart, London, Belfast, Tokyo, Bilboa and Cincinnati.

When asked how many languages staff members speak, Korala reels off nine.

Korala places a keen emphasis on building an engineer-friendly environment in KAL's Edinborough office, where employees commute by bicycle, bus or car.

"It's important to make people comfortable. Good engineering requires engineers to be in the same room," he said. "I found people who had traveled, or had commuted to the UK, and talked about the differences in culture."

Korala's own work habits, which include long hours and frequent travel, are well known by KAL staffers.

"He's very intense," said Hensley. "He has an unbounded capacity to work, the ability to concentrate for long periods of time. He's as good (at engineering software) as our best software guys."

The Complete Business Package

Korala's curiosity flourished in his first career. While pursuing his PhD at Edinburgh University, he studied artificial intelligence and computers. But after seven years in an academic setting, with a Ph.D. in hand, he felt ready for a new challenge.

He went to Belgium, where as a software engineer for PA Associates he learned the principles of project management. Two years later, he moved on to Coopers and Lybrand, where he learned the basics of running a business and cash management.

"I think of it as sort of an MBA," he said.

With his PhD in technology, his project management experience at PA and real-world business background from Coopers, Korala felt he was ready to make his own mark.

The entrepreneurial bug had hit hard, and though he was barely 30 years old, Korala launched KAL.

"I had to do my own thing," he said. "Talking to others and not delivering wasn't that much fun. Though I had very little money, at the time the UK economy was booming, and it seemed it wasn't a risk."

KAL is no overnight success, however. During the first few years, Korala discovered painfully how difficult it was to be a one-man show.

"I thought I'd get contracts quickly, but after five months of going and seeing everyone I could think of - nothing happened," he said.

His break came, he said, when he "came at it from a different angle. I'd do anything."

NCR provided his first contract that year, and by 1993 Korala was able to hire his first employee.

At KAL's headquarters, in an old cigarette factory, Korala works in an office he shares with the company's administrative assistant that is best described as modest. It has few luxuries, and is smaller than the offices of some engineers on his staff. He hasn't changed offices since moving in to the building in the mid-90s.

Typically, he comes to work in jeans and rolled-up sleeves, and impresses colleagues with his humility and work ethic. And, according to NCR's Halpern, he's picked up one trait that's uniquely American.

"He had a tough time with the American sense of humor," Halpern recalled, "Now he's better than we are. He's gotten good at giving it back."

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KAL ATM Software

KAL is a world-leading provider of multivendor ATM platform, application and management software, specializing in solutions for bank ATMs, self-service kiosks, and bank branch networks.

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