Senior Manager / Head - Strategy (Group CEO's Office)
Falcon Technologies International (IDO Group Company)
Total years of experience :16 years, 5 Months
Lead corporate strategy & business diversification initiatives for a portfolio of businesses under Falcon Technologies (FTI), owned by the Government of RAK. I also assist the Sovereign Family Office of Ras Al Khaimah in Growth & Business Performance Management for its portfolio companies. The businesses are in Medical, Precision Manufacturing, Agri-Tech, Packaging & Polymer 3D Printing. Key action areas are :
• Built & implemented short- & long-term Strategy Plans for group businesses, and drove performance management, including 5 Year Group Strategy plan, yearly Strategy plans for individual businesses
o Cascaded the group’s strategy & targets to individual portfolio companies, and assist the respective GMs in defining projects, budgets & KPIs for each of the portfolio businesses
o Refresh strategies for certain businesses, to align with new customer requirements & competitive market assessment
• Developed the Project Management framework for implementation of all strategic initiatives, and lead the PMO
o Conducted periodic reviews of financial and operational metrics for all portfolio companies, to assess performance v/s budgets, track progress of special projects, identify risks & prepare mitigation plans
• Review & update operating models, governance structures, policies & procedures to drive business excellence
• Identification new avenues of growth & diversification either into new businesses, products or services, including execution of Feasibility studies, Go-to-Market strategies and Business Plan development
• Established a broad market research and competitive intelligence framework to facilitate fact-based decision making
• Formulate investment, divestment and JV strategies that are aligned with the strategic vision, and work closely with the Finance teams & external consultants to drive the transactions
• Facilitate Executive Committee Meetings, Board Meetings and Management Presentations, and work closely with some of the Board Members on other ad-hoc initiatives & special projects
Key Results:
• Identified new business diversification opportunity in the Healthcare industry, and setup a greenfield Medical Consumables business with annual revenue potential of USD 15 Mn
• Backward integrated into scanning & reverse engineering services for the 3D Printing business, thereby enabling FTI’s entry into infrastructure, shipping, oil & gas industries, adding new revenue of ~USD 350K
• Led FTI’s foray into Metal 3D Printing through strategic collaboration with an Italian company, resulting in new revenue of USD 600K+ annually
• Established Shared Services Center for 3 of the businesses, centralizing Finance, HR, IT, Compliance & SCM, achieving a cost saving of USD 210 K in the first year itself
• Led sustainability projects in line with RAK Energy Efficiency Strategy, reducing power cost by 12% & water by 21%
• Operationally transformed a packaging company (Family office company) to increase profitability - Optimized sourcing and operations to improve the margin by 6%, subsequently enabling top-line growth of ~30%
• Setup Balanced Scorecard for KPI setting & performance management across most portfolio companies
• Running acquisition mandate for one of the businesses to diversify product / geographic portfolio
Shazé is a premium lifestyle retail brand, providing curated creations in Décor, Hosting and Accessories for élite customers. I started as the Head of Jewelry & Accessories (J&A) Business, and quickly moved into a Corporate Strategy role.
• Complete P&L responsibility, managing new product development & launch, product portfolio rationalization, channel strategy (across Retail, eCommerce & marketplace), strategic partnerships, promotion strategy & implementation
o Increased revenue run-rate of J&A business by 18% to USD 4+ Mn, and significantly improved bottom-line
• Developed omni-channel retail strategy, leveraging Big Data Analytics and AI
o Create dashboards and reports to analyze data across all channels (offline retail, eCommerce & online marketplaces) to drive both top-line and bottom-line growth i.e. Increase footfalls, improve conversion rates, reduce CAC and increase CLTV, improve customer loyalty, maximize advertisement targeting and spends, optimize pricing & discounts, rationalize product portfolio and develop new products
• Initiated digital D2C Strategy to revamp the overall brand, and augment experience across all digital touch-points
GPPL is currently one of the largest manufacturers of decorative metal packaging in South Asia, supplying to prominent MNCs in India and internationally.
Coming from very limited manufacturing experience and no background in leading a company, I took on the challenge to transform this company. Starting as the COO and subsequently as CEO, I turned around this manufacturing start-up to a mid-sized firm, making it one of the market leaders. I led the entire company, creating the following impact:
• Accomplished more than 3x top-line growth through local & international expansion, and product portfolio rationalization to focus on higher value-added & higher margin products
• Turned around the bottom-line from negative to significant profitability through complete operational overhaul - Introduced 5S & lean manufacturing methodologies, Governance structures, KPI driven Performance Management, MIS & Dashboards, CRM tools and Line Automation - Slashed manpower costs by almost 40%
• Almost halved the Cash Conversion Cycle by revamping sourcing, pricing & collection strategies
• Built an in-house design, prototyping and tooling team, to build and preserve Intellectual Property
• Acquired minority stakes a plastic molding company and a machining workshop
• Responsible for all CAPEX decisions, Financial Planning and Analysis
Led consulting engagements across Bahrain and Oman for this Big4 Consulting organization, in the domains of Business Strategy, Market Entry Assessment & Diversification, Implementation Project Management. Key projects included:
• Business strategy development for diversification of a government-owned Port Operator in Oman
• Designed Affordable Housing scheme for Government of Oman and executed a pilot project; achieved cost savings worth OMR 60 million for the Government. Led the PMO for 3 months, trained the client and then handed over
• Feasibility assessment to set up a government-owned Regional Hospitality Training Institute in Bahrain through PPP
• Conducted multiple Feasibility Studies and Business Plans in Bahrain for: Government-backed Angel Investment fund, Mixed-use Real Estate developments, Sports Club, Poultry company, Dental PG college & Molecular diagnostic lab.
Sutherland is the largest privately held Business Process Management company in India with revenues exceeding USD 1 Bn. Led the newly devised special projects team, to assist the leadership with best practices, research and insights to strategically grow the business across industries
• Worked closely with global business leaders for Insurance, Telecom & Government verticals, to formulate the market penetration strategy, new product GTM & growth strategy across USA & Europe
o Business grew 15% to 40% across 3 verticals across 2 years
• Conceptualized Bespoke Research & Analytics portal, with revenue potential of $7 Mn
• Led Commercial due diligence for USD 200 mn acquisition Apollo Health Street
Led consulting engagements in the domains of growth strategy, feasibility assessment, private equity market due-diligence and operations turnaround. Key engagements include:
• Process optimization, organization restructuring, competency framework development for one of the biggest port operators in the world (Gulf based), saving US$ 2 Mn+ p.a.
• Conducted growth potential assessment & process restructuring engagement for a PE invested automotive component manufacturer
• Business diversification strategy for an Indian MNC, to enter the EPC space
• Comprehensive growth & marketing strategy for a prominent agri-business group
• Operations overhaul & management restructuring for a large aerosol producer
• Led other strategy engagements for: International Education provider, Australian Medical company, IPL Sports Team & European Automotive Accessories manufacturer
Setup and ran the Project Management Office (PMO) for several of these engagements, implementing the strategic recommendations for the clients and guiding them for hand-over.
Expert in strategic tools such as Balanced Scorecard (BSC), 100 Day Project Plan, Hypotheses MECE with Decision Tree framework.