1. What have you found most challenging as a CEO or executive of a large enterprise?

Being the CEO, I am the one who has to sit in the driver’s seat and drive our business. In any organization, right now, the main challenge for any CEO is to manage their peers despite working remotely. The entire system got changed due to this transformation and everything has to be redone according to the new normal. So actually, you have to be ready for transitions and keep it smooth for your professionals and customers which is the key motive here to achieve despite the challenges.

2. How did you become a CEO or executive of a large enterprise? Can you please briefly tell the story?

I am the first generation businessman in my family of farmers and professionals but I always had that spark to build something of my own. With that entrepreneurial thought process, I got to interact with like-minded people and I was able to start Sparx IT early in my career when I was working as a software engineer. Things worked out well for us in the beginning and early breakthroughs inspired us to do better. Since I was among the earliest people who started working on the inception of Sparx IT Solutions, sales & deliveries, it became a primary reason for stepping up as a CEO. Now, it has been more than 14 years and I am not only thriving hard to meet our clients’ requirements and happiness of our employees but also enjoying the responsibility I have been assigned for.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

The new normal just not changed the way companies work but also the way I work now :) These days I follow a work-life balance as working from home gives you ample opportunity to manage your time and take out some for your health and family too. After waking up, working out, and having my breakfast, I move on to reading news on Twitter and check my LinkedIn. I am not a newspaper fan and mostly rely on curated news for updates. Reading morning newsletters about startups, companies in IT & Technology, and innovations happening around the world gives my mind a great positive start for the day.

I often start my work early at 9 am, and it gives me great space to clear the pending stuff like unread email, planning my workday before moving to real work when everybody is in. Meetings take up most of the space of my work time as I have to be in sync and keep everybody motivated in Sparx. I also look after the important customer calls, business deals, and escalations that are meant to me.

One of my everyday roles is to ensure all our sales numbers and deliveries are as planned and we all are motivated enough to achieve our daily goals as an organization. I am a folk-music lover and whenever I get time in the day, I love to spend some time listening to great songs to rejuvenate my mind and reclaim the energy that I require to keep the motivation high. Taking my dinner at my work desk while taking calls is an everyday sight as evening is most hectic. This is how a simple day plan looks like.

4. What's the most recent significant leadership lesson you've learned?

In my long journey as a business administrator, I have learned many things. But, establishing a successful remote work culture would be the most remarkable lesson I have learned in recent times. We organized all

meetings remotely. We learned new cloud tools to perform project-related activities. Later, we implemented an automation tool to manage all ongoing projects.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

Zero to One is my favorite book so far and has helped me strongly in strengthening my leadership skills. The book is authored by Silicon Valley legend Peter Thiel and mentions the foundation strategy for future startups. I could understand that to sustain my company’s value and technological existence, I need to keep on creating new possibilities. I need to work on existing challenges to find new solutions.

6. How do you build leadership capacity in a large enterprise?

Leadership is a role that requires a sense of responsibility and commitment. It is about the realization of purpose. An organization grows or falls because of its team so I focus on making my resources an indispensable part of the organization’s objectives, making their goals clearer, and recognizing their efforts. With such an approach, I have been able to play my role of leadership more efficiently. Such an approach helped me become a credible business leader and bring the best of my team’s potential.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a CEO or executive of a large enterprise so far?

In his commencement speech at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said, “About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is the doctor’s code for preparing to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.”

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true”, he said.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary”, he added.

It was one of the most inspiring things I have ever read in my life so far. It made me think about things in reverse engineering terminology. I think about the expectations, see how much time I have, and make it the best way delivered.