He isn’t on Twitter. He works from 7 am to 11 pm. And at the office, he calls his dad ‘Mr Mahadevan’. Twenty-three-year-old Tarun Mahadevan is possibly the most un-millennial millennial we’ve met — with a focus that is hard to come by in a world where digital distraction is the norm. A little over a year since he moved from working at a private equity bank in London to taking over India business operations for his father’s restaurant empire which includes Sera The Tapas Bar, Copper Chimney, Writer’s Café, Vah Pho and Benjarong — a lot has changed.

Over at the Cool Cream Milano HQ in Nungambakkam, employees now sport uniforms (including Tarun we notice). “I do not like having designations in the organisation. If you do something and you do it well, that is respected,” says the young businessman, apart from telling us, it also makes him a lot more approachable, given that the boss is dressed just the same as an employee. The company also has a new mission statement in line with his vision for the India growth story of the brand: ‘To empower lives through sustainable and innovative culinary concepts’.