Name: Roshan Bhondekar

Title: Founder

Organisation: Transcontinental Times

Roshan Bhondekar is an Indian-Spanish writer, entrepreneur, and filmmaker known for his award-winning short films and non-fiction books. He is the founder and CEO of Transcontinental Times, a media company based in Spain. In June 2020, Bhondekar founded Transcontinental Times, a news company based in Madrid, Spain, and his wife, Sahra Ardah. ​ In June 2021, Bhondekar was appointed by the Board of Directors of the eYs Global Sustainable Development Goals Council to lead the International Affairs and Communications Advisory Board to achieve the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Reference from Public Available Information: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roshan_Bhondekar

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Roshan's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

Dealing with the leadership team and managing their expectations with efficient outcomes is more crucial and challenging.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

Leadership is not a title, nor a position. Struggles and difficulties in life mostly helped me to become a leader.

Born and brought up in Tumsar India, being a lower-middle-class family, have struggled to get a basic education and daily needs stuff.

“My father was a librarian and would earn INR 2,000 a month. We were among the families that struggled to get two meals a day,” Roshan recalls.

While going through difficulties, I decided to take the challenge and transform the lives of my parents and siblings through hard work in education and then get a good job in an IT company to gain some money I have started working in the company since January 2009. We did not have our own house and had a dream to buy our own big house, and that dream came true in April 2014.

How COVID-19 Pandemic offer an opportunity to define Leadership?

Many of us were going through a difficult time during 2020. Every crisis brings challenges and threats to entrepreneurs and their organizations, whether it is initiated by human behavior, natural disasters, or economic mechanisms. At the end of December 2019, the coronavirus started spreading from Wuhan, China to other countries so widely and quickly. Many aspects of private and public life had to be moved online. Entrepreneurs were not an exception. They had to start moving their business activities online. However, not everything can be solved conveniently online. This is how me and my wife Sahra Ardah has taken the COVID-19 Pandemic positively to redefine the era of journalism.

Therefore, we aim to capture the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship at different kinds of levels, to accumulate knowledge of best individual and journalism best practices in helping freelance journalists and mass communication Interns overcome the crisis. I have decided to bring the unseen voice from different parts of continents, whereas their mission is to have an 'Independent & Unbiased voice' on a global platform. In June 2020, I announced the launch of Spain-based 'Transcontinental Times' through Twitter.

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

1. Making a simplified list of To-Do list.

2. Prioritizing activities based on Importance.

3. Daily 45 minutes of physical exercise (such as cycling, running, gym, etc.)

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

1. Always have experienced people from similar industries (domain experts) when you want to establish any profitable business.

2. Define a timeline, for how long you have to invest in people and business.

3. Give free hands to your team and trust more.

4. Help them to grow even if they are not producing results/outcomes.

5. Keep productive and efficient people in the team, and give a last chance to unproductive/non-creative team members.

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?

1. You Can Win by Shiv Khera

This book helped me to gain a confidence-driven approach while dealing with complex scenarios earlier in my life, as it always reminded me ´You can win´.

2. How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be: The 25 Principles of Success by Jack Canfield

This book, majorly helped me to understand the importance of every small contributor of a company and has had a profound impact on leadership so far.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Always have Plans A, B, and C.

A is like a Master Plan and due to any external circumstances if it fails, have a plan B as a backup.

In the worst scenario, better to have plan C, if A and B not working.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

In the recent ongoing Cricket World Cup 2023 tournament, Afghanistan cricket team coach Jonathan Trott has simplified chasing for his batters by giving them set targets for every 10-over mark in this World Cup. They followed that to get to 283 and 243 runs with ease against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively and won both important world-cup matches comfortably.

“There is a bit more focus with regards to breaking it down into smaller targets, for sometimes you know sitting out in Pakistan getting chasing 280 and starting on nought, it’s a long way,” Trott said.

“If you break it down your final target, that seems a lot more manageable, so those sort of little things, motivating the players and keeping them in touch with where we want to be, And that’s also a feel-good fact if you know you are on the right track, it’s also a nice feeling as well.”

This is a relevant story for many companies, and it also helped me to realize the importance of breaking bigger targets into smaller ones and then track.