The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders Revamping the Future 2021

THE OPPORTUNISTIC APPROACH

Rags to Riches LEADER’S VIEWPOINT

MOST INNOVATIVE

BUSINESS

LEADERS REVAMPING

The Trucking Industry in the 21st Century

THE FUTURE

2021

NIGEL GREEN A CREATOR OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL AND FINTECH CONSULTANCIES VOL 03 | ISSUE 06 | 2021

EDITOR’S NOTE Focus, Improve, and Innovate

I

n order to climb the ladder of sound leadership, every business leader has to have a business acumen, entrepreneurial mindset, and an innovative approach towards everything. Business leaders are well aware of what they want for themselves. They work their way up to become the innovative leader and transforming a small business into a million-dollar business.

The leadership structure has always been about empowering others. Taking this into consideration, business leaders establish a great culture in the company where everyone works hard and feels passionate about what they are doing. They encourage the team to set their own goals and objectives.

Today, the business environment is changing, and thus, an innovative approach is the need of the hour for leaders to grow.

The innovative methodology provides 360-degree coverage for the leaders, enabling them to ensure maximum success. After realizing the importance of innovative mindset, business leaders are inculcating it in their day-to-day operations.

Additionally, business leaders have been highly adaptable and flexible in their approach in handling the unusual situation like today’s pandemic. Ultimately, they are playing a vital role in their respective organization and are the most important asset of the company. They are playing a crucial role in the success of the company by expanding the business beyond geographical boundaries.

Innovative leaders by nature are problem-solvers. Instead of exploring problem, they believe in seeking solution to problems.

They believe in taking risks and learning from every experience. All their efforts are in the direction to improve the capability to drive and transform the future of digital transformation.

With this insightful perception, CIO Look has come up with its latest edition of The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders Revamping the Future, 2021.

Featuring on the Cover is Nigel Green, who is involved in all the major decisions involving deVere Group’s different entities and provides the vision, the ‘direction of travel’, and the motivation. He believes that “Knowledge is power-and to be the best you can possibly be, you need to constantly learn even if people think you are stupid or foolish.”

With this ideology and his insightful perception of the contemporary world, Green has built one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and fintech organisations, made up of 97 legal entities around the world. This fact says a lot about his perseverance and his ‘roll up your sleeves’ leadership style.

He leads from the front and works side-by-side with the teams to achieve the goals of the company. He believes that if every leader can really maximize their full potential in business by consistently being in a state of peak performance when it matters most.

Lastly, never stop learning with our CXO standpoints written by the industry experts and the creative articles by our in-house editorial team which will help to improve your skillset.

Let’s Delve!

Sourabh More

COVER STORY

10 Nigel Green A Creator of One of the World’s Largest Independent Financial and Fintech Consultancies

CONTENTS ARTICLE

28 Opportunistic approach Rags to Riches

42

Leader’s Viewpoint The Trucking Industry in the 21st Century

18

22

Anton Baranchuk

A Visionary Leader in Data Visualization Software Business

Jeff LoCastro

Embarking on a Quest to Provide Unique Solutions

34

An Accomplished Leader Empowering Women to Go to the Next Level

Taking Hospital Operations Processes to the New Heights

Manzeera Solutions

An Audacious Business Leader and Idealistic Thinker

Marne Martin

Kenneth Kee

38

Leigh Rust

44

30

Passionate About Empowering Businesses Through Data

48

Neil Laughton Leading Bravely and

by Example

52

Sukhi Jutla

Taking Jewellery Industry to the New Heights

Hitesh Dhamani Editor-in-Chief CONTENT

Senior Editor Alan Swann Executive Editors Rohit Chaturvedi Alex Spellman

FOLLOW US ON

www.facebook.com/ciolook www.twitter.com/ciolook WE ARE ALSO AVAILABLE ON

DESIGN

Visualizer Dave Bates Art & Design Director Kartik Balapurkar Associate Designer Shubham Dali

CONTACT US ON

Email info@ciolook.com

SALES

Senior Sales Manager Kshitij S. Customer Success Manager Jack Ryan Sales Executives John, Kane, Maneesh TECHNICAL

Technical Head Aditya K. Technical Consultant Victor Collins SME-SMO

For Subscription www.ciolook.com Copyright © 2021 CIOLOOK, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from CIOLOOK. Reprint rights remain solely with CIOLOOK.

Research Analyst Eric Smith SEO Executive Nikita Khaladkar

sales@ciolook.com

March, 2021

Featured Person

Company Name

Brief

Anton Baranchuk CEO

AnyChart anychart.com

Founded in 2003, AnyChart is a global leader in Interactive Data Visualization. Its solution has helped thousands of satisfied customers increase revenues, reduce operational costs, and better serve their customers.

Jeff LoCastro CEO

Neener Analytics neeneranalytics.com

Kenneth Kee CEO

Origin Integrated Studios originistudios.com

At Origin Integrated Studios (OIS), the team develops innovative and creative software solutions for Malaysia and its regions.

Lee Blasdale MD

Hanson Lee hansonlee.com

Hanson Lee helps build the teams, organisations and productivity clients need to meet and exceed expectations.

Leigh Rust Founder

Safetyline Jalousie Louvre Windows safetylinejalousie.com.au

Safetyline Jalousie louvre windows are the most versatile, highest performing and best value for money single glazed louvre windows on the market.

Maninder Singh MD

Manzeera Solutions manzeerasolutions.co.uk

Manzeera Solutions are an independent European based business intelligence consultancy with years of experience across enterprise data landscapes in numerous industries and have extensive knowledge of best practice models as well as the technologies across the field.

Marne Martin President

IFS ifs.com

IFS Cloud is a single product that delivers class-leading solutions across Service Management, Enterprise Resource Planning and Enterprise Asset Management.

Neil Laughton Founder

Laughton & Co laughton.co

Laughton & Co helps individuals and company’s create the best strategies for growth & profitability, improve leadership & management skills and develop happy & high performing teams.

Nigel J. Green CEO

deVere Group devere-group.com

deVere Group is one of the world’s leading independent financial advisory organisations, with more than $10bn under advice from over 80,000 clients in 100 countries.

Sukhi Jutla Co-Founder

MarketOrders marketorders.net

MarketOrders is an award-winning B2B platform that enables independent retail jewellers to buy gold and diamond jewellery directly and seamlessly from international suppliers.

Nnener Analytics is a leader in computational social science and the only social media analytics that delivers specific, individual, risk outcomes in a 100% friction-less environment.

Nigel Green Founder and CEO deVere Group

COVER STORY

Nigel Green Founder and CEO

“ Being successful and the best at what you do, brings both haters and supporters. Some people appreciate success, some people don’t.

“

“Knowledge is power-and to be the best you can possibly be, you need to constantly learn even if people think you are stupid or foolish,” believes Nigel Green, the Founder and CEO of deVere Group.

W

ith this ideology and his insightful perception of the contemporary world, Green has built one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and fintech organisations, made up of 97 legal entities around the world. This fact says a lot about his perseverance and his ‘roll up your sleeves’ leadership style.

A Gap that Led the Inception

After starting London’s financial services sector at a young age on his father’s advice, Green had the opportunity to go to Bermuda on a business trip. There, he discovered that there was a gap in the market to give sound financial planning advice tailored to the needs of expatriates and international investors around the world. This discovery led to the inception of deVere Group.

Green set-up his first office in Hong Kong in 2002 and has been growing and developing the company globally ever since. The company does business in 100 countries around the world and has more than $12bn under advisement from some 100,000 clients. It specialises in cross-border financial planning strategies for expatriates, international and local mass affluent investors.

A Hands-on Leader It’s been said that Green is a very ‘hands-on’ leader, speaking with people from all levels across the company. He doesn’t believe in micro-managing as he thinks that is a mistake. One should have the right people in the right positions and be able to trust them to carry out their roles in the best way possible.

However, Green is always available to guide and inspire his people.

Green is involved in all the major decisions involving deVere Group’s different entities and provides the vision, the ‘direction of travel’ and the motivation. He leads from the front and works side-by-side with the teams to achieve the goals of the company.

Constantly Adapting and Improving Every leader faces trying times, both internally and externally, but the important thing is how he or she responds to them. It becomes their responsibility to find and implement solutions.

One of the main challenges Green faced when he started in the industry was that he was young and ‘competing’ against older guys who had more experience. However, he knuckled down, worked as hard as he could, indeed harder than all of them, and gained all the knowledge and skills in order to become the most successful manager in the firm he was working for.

Since then, another major challenge for Green has been how to stay on top. In his experience, the best way to maintain the industry’s number one - besides hard work, commitment and expertise - is to consistently adapt and improve. He mentions that this is a highly competitive market, which is rapidly evolving in terms of client expectations and regulatory requirements and if you want to stay ahead, you’ve got to be constantly looking at new ways of doing things and getting better as you do so.

Green believes this is one of deVere’s greatest strengths as a company.

Securing Long-term Financial Goals of Individuals and Businesses deVere’s clients tell the company that it’s its global presence, strength and resources which feed into having the industry’s top advisers, offering the widest range of services - including a suite of fintech apps, market-leading low-cost financial solutions, innovative investments with specialist fund managers, insurance, property, tax consultancy, mortgages and fx, amongst others – and world-class governance and compliance procedures.

All of this gives them peace of mind that they are ontrack to secure their long-term financial goals – which typically include financial security and freedom for themselves and their loved ones.

Inculcating a Hybrid Work Environment When the pandemic first hit, deVere adapted quickly and decisively. The company had a work from home policy which worked remarkably well as they all pulled together as a team. For example, teams in Australia were training and motivating other teams in London, guys in Geneva were supporting those in Hong Kong, and vice versa, etc.

Green mentions that his employees managed to work via Zoom – and still today a lot of its work continues to be done by video conferencing. It also found that its clients were more willing than ever to have meetings via Zoom. Today, they seem to prefer it to face-to-face meetings. The knock-on effect of this on the company is that it can speak to more clients every day, helping them reach their financial objectives, and its productivity has risen.

“ The most important thing in life is to remain true to your values and never submit to the pressures and expectation people place on you.

“

Zoom and other technologies have helped deVere enormously and now, wherever it is possible, it offers a hybrid system where people can either work from its Covid-secure cutting-edge offices, from home or a combination of both.

Giving Back to Community As a company, deVere uses its time, energy, and resources to work with charities in the jurisdictions in which it operates globally. The company is also particularly focused on environmental, social and governance agendas.

To this end, deVere has committed to providing free, independent advice to its clients on socially responsible investing. This is the first of many campaigns it is planning to launch in 2021, with the aim of positioning $1bn in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments within five years.

Delivering First-of-their-kind FinTech Solutions According to Green, the financial services industry has seen drastic technology-led changes over the last few years. Fintech is reshaping and redefining the way in which all financial services across the board are delivered.

Not only was deVere Group the very first international advisory firm to actively develop and promote fintech –

it remains the biggest and most successful fintech provider in this space.

Not content to rest on its already impressive track record in fintech, the company has an ever-growing suite of innovative wealth tech products and services that are frequently first-of-their-kind. Put simply, there is no other firm that can come close to deVere in fintech development, innovation and implementation – and the company is only just getting started.

Words of Encouragement In his advice to upcoming leaders to thrive in the present-day cutthroat business ecosystem, Green shares five things.

“First, never stop raising expectations about yourself and your ambitions.”

“Second, don’t let negative people or criticism hold you back.”

“Third, work on your communication skills.”

“Fourth, have a laser-like focus and don’t procrastinate.”

“And fifth, never stop learning and improving yourself and your skillset.”

He believes that if every leader sticks to these fundamentals, they can really maximise their full potential in business by consistently being in a state of peak performance when it matters most.

CHOOSE OUR SUBSCRIPTION

1 Year 12 Issues $250

6 Months 6 Issues $130

Stay in the known.

Subscribe to CIOLOOK Get CIOLOOK Magazine in print, and digital on www.ciolook.com

3 Months 3 Issues $70

1 Month 1 Issue $25

Anton Baranchuk CEO and Co-founder AnyChart

AnyChart gives you the power to let data speak in intuitive visualizations, driving better decision making and faster growth.

18

| March 2021 |

Anton Baranchuk

A Visionary Leader in Data Visualization Software Business

W

hat distinguishes visionary entrepreneurs is that in the end, their aspirations become a reality. Eighteen years ago, while pursuing a Ph.D. in Mathematics, Anton Baranchuk came up with the idea of a universal solution for data visualization. To develop it, he founded a startup called AnyChart which was profitable from the very start. Nowadays, the company leads the global market, counting AT&T, Citi, Samsung, Volkswagen, Yahoo, and thousands of other businesses worldwide among its customers.

This approach was fulfilled into a dedicated component that very soon earned first users, from a bunch of small websites to giants like Oracle, then 3M, Lockheed Martin, and many others.

After the downfall of Flash as a universally used environment several years ago, AnyChart added the SVG support and then completely shifted to HTML5, the backbone technology of the modern web.

A Powerful Feature-Rich JavaScript Charting Library In a challenging transition from Flash to HTML5 in the early 2010s, AnyChart built a JavaScript charting library as the next versatile, universal data visualization tool allowing developers to build charts seamlessly in their stacks, with any kind of technologies and databases.

A Universal Engine for Interactive Data Visualization It all began with thoughts of making interactive data visualization easily accessible through a sort of one-sizefits-all technology to let developers represent any data in any chart. Why is that important?

Technically, it may seem not too difficult to create graphs and diagrams as there are various dedicated tools here and there. In fact, that is only so when you need to represent some certain data in a certain chart type within a certain environment. But what if a situation is not that simple and favorable?

Fundamentally, it is a single JS library for creating any charts, out of any data in terms of source and format, which are easily embeddable in any web, mobile, or standalone project. To give each customer exactly what they need, the company markets it as a family of smaller, purpose-specific charting products:

For instance, when it comes to enterprise reporting systems everything is much less straightforward. There, you often have to deal with different sources and types of data, as well as a huge variety of questions the analysts are looking for answers to. At the same time, it is critical to always provide a clear, explicit picture in which data truly speaks revealing obscure trends and patterns.

AnyChart for dozens of basic charts AnyGantt for project data visualizations such as Gantt, resource, and PERT charts Ÿ AnyStock for stock, financial, or any time-series graphs Ÿ AnyMap for geographic and seat maps

Making a “Swiss knife” for data visualization development was the thrilling challenge AnyChart rose to address.

In 2018, AnyChart’s data visualization library was named the Best Innovation in JavaScript Technology and received a prestigious DEVIES award at the world’s largest developer tech awards event at DeveloperWeek in California.

Ÿ Ÿ

A Novel Approach Turned into Inception The year 2003 when AnyChart emerged was the time of Adobe Flash — it was everywhere. Aiming to create a universal charting solution, Anton and his teammates realized that it was possible to extract data in the XML format from literally any source and display it in the form of a Flash chart.

19

| March 2021 |

Top Qlik Extensions In 2019, AnyChart partnered with Qlik, a globally leading platform for data analytics and business intelligence. The alliance allowed AnyChart to engage with an entirely new category of customers in addition to web developers and software engineers — end-user audience of data analysts and BI experts worldwide.

decision making to boost the overall performance.

There are also a number of governmental and educational organizations among AnyChart’s customers, including California State University, Greater Manchester Police, International Business School Groningen, Oxford e-Research Centre, China’s Ministry of Land and Resources, Universidade do Minho, University of Chicago, Utah Department of Transportation, Women's Health America, WVU School of Medicine, and many others.

On top of its powerful JavaScript charting library, AnyChart built intuitive extensions for Qlik Sense that opened up multiple new charts and features to Qlik users and therefore quickly became best-selling.

Imparting Wisdom When we asked Anton Baranchuk about the essential traits that successful leaders should possess, he emphasized openness in the widest sense — to teammates, to customers, to new information, ideas, and experiences. Then, he said, it is always necessary to analyze what they have found out and think about how that could be applied in what they are doing, and not just for now but also — and maybe most importantly — for later stages.

Leading Data Visualization Tools In 2021, AnyChart is a recognized leader in interactive data visualization whose solutions are used by thousands of companies all over the world. From earlystage startups to established leaders such as AT&T, Bank of China, Bosch, BP, Citi, ExxonMobil, Ford, General Electric, JPMorgan, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Microsoft, Novartis, Reuters, Rolex, Samsung, Tencent, UBS, Volkswagen, Yahoo, and many more.

In addition, Anton stressed that in order to withstand the complexities one should analyze the overall market and think as many steps ahead as possible. He also believes that a team of enthusiastic professionals is what matters the most on the path to growing a thriving business.

In America where the company’s global HQ is located, over three-fourth of the Fortune 1000 companies have already chosen AnyChart to operate data visualization in their apps and products, in this way getting better insight into their business and improving data-driven

20

| March 2021 |

Jeff LoCastro CEO/Founder Neener Analytics

22

| March 2021 |

Jeff LoCastro Embarking on a Quest to Provide Unique Solutions

O

nly innovation breaks the status quo to create better and unique solutions to solve existing problems. Some people are seemingly born with an entrepreneurial sense while some people acquire it over time. Jeff LoCastro is a serial entrepreneur that was born to build things; addicted to creating and building. He doesn’t know from where the “addiction” came; he thinks that he was just born with it.

He has always been surrounded by people who were doing that: building and creating. He is the CEO/Founder of Neener Analytics. Jeff says, "I had no idea I was being innovative. It just seemed obvious to me.

But what we are doing at Neener Analytics is so gamechanging, it fundamentally alters the analytics paradigm

forever. " Neener Analytics is the leader in computational social science and the only social media analytics that delivers specific, individual, risk outcomes in a 100% friction-less environment. It is the Human-Data Science Company that delivers Small Data Results, in a Big Data world.

Jeff’s grandfather was a serial entrepreneur, his father was a serial entrepreneur, and his friends were serial entrepreneurs. He often jokes that he never knew anyone who had a “real” job. His first job was with an entrepreneur. And he has just always asked “why?” and “how?’ He never understood the idea of “you can’t do that.” That notion got him into a lot of trouble as he was

‘‘

Neener Analytics integrates cutting-edge behavioral and personality science with technology to deliver a unique solution to a really big problem.

23

| March 2021 |

growing up! But he was supremely attracted to ideas where he has been told it can’t be done.

Brief us about your company and its prominent products/solutions/services that make you a preferred choice over your competition.

There was always a lot of talk about “Big Data.” And everybody cheered it. But big data is not a new concept.

It’s been around for a hundred years and it’s pretty basic stuff. But most people don’t really know what it is.

Essentially, big data are aggregations or bins of motivations, behaviors, or affinities. And everyone you think that exhibits those motivations, behaviors, or affinities get tossed into that bin. But what does it mean? Well, you’re not really sure so you need more aggregations and bins to toss people into. Basically, big data is the practice of, “I don’t know you, but I know people like you.” What a horrible way to make a decision or form an opinion about someone!

In fairness, big data is a perfectly acceptable way to make, for example, marketing decisions. But it is a terrible way to understand authentic outcomes, especially financial risk outcomes. Big data by its very nature creates disparate impact. There had to be a better way.

Jeff has built a number of companies. Each one seems different but, there was always a through-line. And that through-line is really his story. In an interview with CIO Look, Jeff LoCastro shares his story and about his innovative contribution to providing transparent and quantitative benefits to financial institutions.

Below are the highlights of the interview between CIO Look and Jeff LoCastro: Brief our audience on your professional journey, up to your current leadership position.

I realized long ago that I love building things. And I especially love shaking-the-frame, creating dots before they become lines, and engaging in a daily assault on conventional wisdom; embarking on a quest to fundamentally rattle an industry, doing something different, and build teams that share my vision; all in the name of taking that which was just “okay” and making it great.

24

| March 2021 |

already built out 2 product lines, each delivering 5 decisioning products. We have another line slated for 2021 and are on track for a new line each of the next 5years while continuing to expand our decisioning capabilities.

Before big data models, how did people make (accurate) decisions about other individual human beings? How did my grandfather get his first home loan back in 1940? He just walked into the bank, said he wanted a home loan, and the banker said, Yes. I know you.” The keywords are: I. Know. You. But how did he know? The banker didn’t have a lifetime record of all my grandfather’s transactions. And he didn’t have a collection of his complete payment history. But he knew my grandfather would pay him back. That banker knew this based on the conversations and communications he had with him over time. He knew this by having listened to how my grandfather talked about the things in his life: his words and his communications. Exactly what human beings do with other human beings.

We’ll have offices globally connecting banks, lenders, insurance companies, real estate companies and others with 4 billion currently invisible consumers globally.

This is the innovation, except not using big data. This is not sentiment analysis or Likes & Friends or Key words or phrases. We have cracked the code on Small Data.

And Small Data = I know you.

If given a chance, what change would you bring about in the ecosystem of your respective industry?

Well, I think we are bringing about change.

Fundamental change. If COVID-19 showed us anything it was the massive weakness of big data models. The future of decisioning is small data. And we are leading that worldwide.

What would be your advice for the emerging and aspiring business leaders?

I’ll give the same advice I always give: find something to lead and lead it. Leadership can be practiced. Yes, some people are innate leaders, and some people are just better at it. But you will never know until you start practicing it. Form a group, join a club, learn to organize.

Don’t wait for your job to deliver leadership to you. Do it yourself. And be prepared to make mistakes.

What have you envisioned for yourself and your company to sustain its market position in the future?

We are really pioneering the idea that the consumer is their own data. And the consumer as their own source of data is the future of all consumer engagement. We are currently in 11 countries and I see us owning specific market regions in the next 10 years. We’ve

25

| March 2021 |

RAGS TO RICHES

28

| March 2021 |

Opportunistic Approach

W

e often hear people saying, follow your heart, believe in yourself, and lead from within, as the outside world and the people of our society have a lot of expectations from us. But, is it just about to live up to their expectations or being courageous enough to think outside the box and find our own path? This is the real question a person needs to ask himself/herself.

The times are tough, it was tougher back then as well for these leaders, as we learn that it is not about the money to enter into entrepreneurship but about surrounding yourself with confidence and backing your abilities. Considering the opportunities with the availability of technological tools the goal of becoming a successful leader is very much possible today, and the above inspirational stories will help you to achieve it.

Few such leaders, who have gone the distance to make the impossible possible, are Steve Jobs, Howard Schultz, Larry Ellison, Samuel Walton, and more. What sets them different from the rest is their gut and intuition to rise in tough situations. Let’s look at their leadership journey as they are the trendsetters of this century.

Let’s Delve More into the Leadership Traits Why only handful of companies make it to the top? The answer is clear, that every successful company has a successful leader at every level. Knowing the roles and responsibilities and having the curiosity to learn helps in taking those big decisions. Leadership comes along with problem-solving ability and building a level of trust, integrity, and reliability are also the key factors.

Business leaders who are open to innovation and diversity in the culture strengthen the foundation of any organization. As a leader, he/she has to be dynamic and flexible in the approach. This helps both the leaders and the organization to stay together in challenging times.

The Spark Within Steve Jobs – the greatest mind of modern history struggled really hard to make ends meet. He did not love education and was fascinated by computers at a very young age. After dropping out of college he started working at Atari – a video game manufacturing company.

Ultimately, it is the employees who play a crucial role in the part of any company. By creating a culture of opportunities and growth employees feel passionate about their work and sets the environment of positivity in the organization. Having a dynamic culture of diversity and inclusion brings different strategies and ideas into the team. Having a team of different backgrounds shows how innovative you are in terms of growing together and leading. That’s the quality which stands out of a leader to lead and grow along with the team members.

When he realized that it is his time to come up with his own venture, he ran to investors. Eventually, Intel agreed and Jobs was worth $1million at the age of 23.

In no time he was the youngest rich person crossing the $100 million mark.

From Selling Magazines to working at waiting tables in exchange for meals and milking the family cow – Samuel Walton made it big from a small grocery shop to founding the biggest supermarket - Walmart. He had to do very odd jobs at his time to make financial ends for himself and the family. He took a loan to fund his business and within 3 years Walmart grew to $225, 000. Today Walmart holds 11, 500 stores approx., and revenue of US$548.743 billion.

True Words Every business leader has this inspiration within him/her to grow at this level. They need to step up by believing in themselves just like the above examples.

Being a business leader, it is natural to have the ability to cultivate an understanding of bring the best out of oneself.

Similarly, Larry Ellison founded Oracle, even after having an unsupportive family situation. Howard Schultz grew up in a poor family as the son of a truck driver. However, it did not stop him to become the CEO of the coffee company – Starbucks.

Now that we know about the leadership internally and externally, the important thing is to respond to it. It is the main challenge as every leader has a different approach to stay on top. Besides hard work and commitment, adapting to the ongoing situation and improving is expected from today’s business leader, and of-course looking for new ways of leading and getting better each day.

Hence, looking at all their inspiring journeys, we realize that we forget to look what’s inside us and what we are capable of. To take advice is okay up to a certain point but to trust your gut with a strong feeling is everything that makes a true business leader.

29

| March 2021 |

Kenneth Kee CEO Origin Integrated Studios

30

| March 2021 |

Kenneth Kee Taking Hospital Operations Processes to the New Heights

H

run, and technical support maintenance services after system go live.

ealthcare arena has witnessed a drastic transformation after several innovations have been taken place in the industry. Behind this transformation is the contribution of many organizations, who with their top-notch solutions have streamlined various processes in the healthcare industry. One such organization is Origin Integrated studios, which helps healthcare providers by transforming their healthcare facilities to be smarter and more efficient in this digital age.

Origin’s goal is to help digitalizing hospital operation processes by providing a platform for Digital Transformation. Its business model is based on size of the hospital in terms of number of beds ranging from below 100 for small size and single disciplinary to multidisciplinary of ordinary setup of above 100 beds to large setup of over 300 beds. The company is on a mission to become a household name for EMR in the Southeast Asia region.

Origin Integrated Studios was incorporated 6 years ago by a team of talented software developers with Kenneth Kee as their CEO taking a role in business development leading from first hospital customer to now over twenty hospitals running its mission critical HIS with EMR 24 x 7, 365 days.

The solution provided by Origin is customisable to make it available as configuration in the system. With its continuous R&D enhancement, overtime it has developfeature rich and comprehensive solution compared to our competitors where some of them do not allow customisation or take in any good input of enhancement requirements from customers.

A Proficient Leader Kenneth started his career as a Business Executive with a regional ICT company headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. He brings 18 years of enriching experience to the table. He has accumulated industry knowledge and expertise in the field of pre-sales, account management, sales, marketing and business development for software solutions and services for Banking, Healthcare, the Government and some cross industry applications.

Origin EMR integrates to major sub-systems available in the market such as Laboratory Information System (LIS), Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS), Mobile Appointment System, Vital Signs monitoring system, Early Warning Score (EWS) system, Drug Database Decision Support System, Financial Information System and many others. The company has made its system interoperability among all new and existing hospital systems for harnessing the purpose of achieving full potential of EMR.

Digitalizing Hospital Operation Processes

Pandemic Turned out as an Opportunity

Origin Integrated Studios specializes in Hospital Information System (HIS) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR). The company offers implementation services that include business requirement study, data preparation and migration, installation and setup configuration, training, user acceptance test and trial

As an ICT company supporting Origin’s healthcare system for healthcare providers, the company has approval to operate at 30% of its capacity, while the rest are working from home (WFH) to stay safe. Over

31

| March 2021 |

“

Expanding in Progress Under the leadership of Kenneth, Origin is recognized as the leading EMR solution provider with the largest implemented market share for EMR in Malaysia having three hospitals using its system in Indonesia. The company has no doubt of it expanding beyond its home country to the APAC region that has a market potential of more than 3000 hospitals, within this decade from 2021 to 2030. There are many existing obsolete systems that need replacement while there are many emerging economies such as Vietnam and Philippines that are prospering will then need the help of implementing advanced HIS and EMR. Origin is on it.

Set your path, inching all the way, because destiny is in your hand.

“

A Take on Impactful Leadership

the past one year in the pandemic, Origin has learned to implement projects both local and overseas using better project management and communication tools because most activities such as business requirement study, data preparation, data migration, training, user acceptance test can be conducted online. However, for most GoLive of the system it has assigned resources for the planned activities.

In the opinion of Kenneth, running a business is not about making profit, revenue and immediate success; it is more than that. Leaders must inculcate honey empire philosophy, which is about building the business by doing the right things and being nice to people. It is no hate towards other people or businesses, and when the opportunity comes where you can help people out by doing it. He says, “As a leader, we need to be the figurehead of the company running the business acting as if like a media company producing regular ads images and write-up materials of branding, useful information, knowledge sharing dissemination, event and activities for blogs and social media. Storytelling is one of them.”

The pandemic turned as an opportunity for the company, as more healthcare providers took this period to change or upgrade their existing obsolete system and adopt a newer with latest technology that includes EMR. As compare to other industries, Origin has been seeing growth in its sales revenue in this trouble times.

Kenneth believes that every leader needs to have patience in almost everything. One should have the patience to sow the harvest after all the hard work the company puts into with their strategic goals. It is a job as a servant leader working for your team, leading with empathy and weathering storms. He asserts, “What got you to where you are today won't get you to where you want to be tomorrow. If you want to continue to be successful, you need to adopt a growth mindset that means building a learning and coaching culture that draws upon expertise from both inside and outside your organisation.”

An Intent to Disrupt the Healthcare Ecosystem Kenneth mentions that Origin is working on launching an enterprise portal for all clinics to refer their patients to their respective choice of hospitals. As the company has large numbers of hospitals using its system that it can integrate and share information, therefore it can build an alliance within its customer network. At a later stage, it will add in insurance claim, provide online consultation as advisor, and all other permitted patient information into this enterprise health record system.

Kenneth believes this will somehow disrupt the ecosystem of the industry.

In his advice to emerging leaders, he says “Don’t lose focus on your goals you have set as nothing come easy, work extra one percent harder and persevere until you achieve your desire outcome and accomplish your goals.”

32

| March 2021 |

An Audacious Business Leader and Idealistic Thinker

D

ue to the constant change in business processes the world has transformed into a small global village; a village in which there is a huge stream of contentions and competitions between organizations. In this scenario the most effective and beneficial practice for any organization is to create innovative ways in conducting business. This dissertation deals with the responsibility of leadership in the phenomena of organizational change and innovation. Leigh Rust is such an innovative leader who drives his organization’s success by combining a modern innovative approach with a visionary attitude.

Outstanding Leadership Awards: Finalist Australian Men in Leadership.

Leigh Rust is the Co-founder and Director of Safetyline Jalousie Louvre Windows. The company is the market leader in producing high-quality performance louvre window systems. He asserts “Our product is used in various projects across the country, including classrooms, multi-residential developments, sporting complexes, social housing and correctional facilities.” He adds, one thing that sets them apart from their competitors is that the company’s products are built to last.

After becoming a qualified mechanic, Leigh worked his way up through the ranks at Vergola and after 10 years, Leigh and his brother made the leap to launch their own venture - establishing Safetyline Jalousie in 2010. In the past decade, the company has grown from a small family operation based in Sydney to a multi-million-dollar company with offices in Queensland, Victoria and Malaysia.

Beginning as a Business Leader From a young age, Leigh and his brother were exposed to business, entrepreneurship, and development through their father’s manufacturing company (Vergola). “I saw what our dad was able to create and the strong work ethic he put into everything he did. I knew I wanted that for myself,” says Leigh.

As an Australian-based company, Safetyline Jalousie is proud to support local manufacturing, producing its highperformance louvre window onshore to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

One of the company’s key strengths lies in the short time it takes from providing a quote to being installed on the project. “In some cases, we’ve been able to achieve this in just three weeks,” says Leigh. As a company, Safetyline Jalousie prides itself on its relationships with government departments, architects, builders, and design managers. The services are personalised, and the teams are informative, accessible, and approachable.

Notes on Impactful Leadership Leigh believes in an open door leadership style, with a flat management structure. His idea of impactful leadership is to lead by example and empower others. He established a great culture at Safetyline Jalousie where everyone works hard, gets along well and is passionate about what they are

In 2020, Leigh Rust was selected as the Sydney Young Entrepreneur of the Year ‘Property & Construction’ and

34

| March 2021 |

35

| March 2021 |

doing. He opines “I encourage my team to set their own goals and objectives which they can take ownership of and are accountable for - knowing that they have my support along the way.” He adds, fostering this healthy and collaborative team environment, where the staff feel valued and comfortable bringing their ideas to the table, has always been important.

Facing Pandemic Head-to-Head Like every business owner, Covid posed a whole new level of challenges that Leigh had not faced before. For the company, Leigh is always looking to push forward and see how it can grow, but with a lot that was out of control, it was difficult to know what specific goals the team could work to.

According to Leigh, the team knew it was going to be more important than ever to maintain visibility, so they focused their efforts on PR and lobbying the government after the announcement of a $17.6 billion stimulus package designed to support the construction industry. By meeting with politicians and government representatives, Leigh made sure they knew about what Safetyline Jalousie was doing, allowing it to create mutually beneficial relationships moving forward.

Needed Changes in the Industry On industry development, Leigh believes one thing that should change is to get more people to care about the things that are not tangible and to want to purchase quality, Australian-made, sustainable products. He finds that people can be much more money-driven in his industry than they are outcome-driven. Decisions are often made based on what is going to be cheapest at that point in time without much consideration of the long-term impacts.

In manufacturing, the idea of developing ‘sustainable’ products can often be thrown around as a buzzword; however, getting more companies to actually care about this, and work towards lowering emissions is so important.

Learn, Plan and Achieve Leigh’s advice for the next generation of business leaders is “work hard, be confident in your abilities and surround yourself with people who inspire you and want to celebrate your successes.” From his experience, he has learnt that quick money does not last, so one needs to roll up their

36

| March 2021 |

“

“

Work hard, be confident in about your abilities and

surround yourself with people who inspire you and want to celebrate your successes.

sleeves and do the hard yards. In the times that are tough one draw upon resilience - this is something he has developed through over a decade in entrepreneurship.

Today, in a work environment that is continually changing it is essential to look for opportunities for learning, growth, and development. Leigh adds, plan for future, be adaptive and flexible. Consider long-term goals and write down all the different tactics that will allow you to achieve them.

37

| March 2021 |

Maninder Singh, Founder, Manzeera Solutions

38

| March 2021 |

Manzeera Solutions

Passionate About Empowering Businesses Through Data

E

RP systems like SAP and Oracle are a crucial component in business intelligence landscapes.

Although it plays a vital role in an organization’s data landscape, it is often difficult to extract data from ERP systems to deliver insights swiftly. To solve these challenges, Maninder Singh - Managing Director at Manzeera Solutions bridges the gap between missioncritical ERP systems & modern BI platforms.

medium, and even large enterprise organizations. In light of this, Manzeera specifically focuses on the challenges faced by different organizations at the nexus of data, business intelligence, and IT with its mission of ensuring that clients reach their full potential.

An Experienced Consultancy Team Founded in 2014, Manzeera Solutions is a UK based consultancy specializing in business intelligence, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics. Manzeera Solutions works on providing real-time analytics, combining ERP extraction with the integration of unstructured data.

Manzeera’s operations revolve around its best practice methodology the “Pentagon of BI Success”, a flagship model of the consultancy, generated over many years of project implementation experience.

Maninder Singh implements a flat organizational structure at the company that helps to communicate the goals and business objectives clearly to all staff members as it ensures a clear understanding of their role in the delivery of exceptional service to the clients.

As a Founder, Maninder Singh personally implements a transformational leadership style. He interacts with all his employees one-on-one and inspires them through effective communication & collaboration, initiating the path to success for the organization.

This helps to guide clients on the right path to success.

This methodology provides unique 360-degree coverage for the clients, enabling them to ensure both maximum ROI and optimum adoption of any initiative.

A Digital Transformational Pioneer After more than 15 years of experience in the field of business intelligence and advanced analytics, Maninder Singh decided to go solo and found Manzeera Solutions, an independent UK based consultancy focusing on bespoke customer-orientated solutions & approaches.

This, along with other intellectual assets, make Manzeera unique in the market. Manzeera Solutions is committed to constantly reviewing the market and partnering with the most innovative BI platforms & technologies to ensure they can assist in the selection of the most appropriate landscapes for their customers, providing best-in-class solutions.

Manzeera Solutions was inherently connected to Maninder’s professional journey and his experiences in the data and analytics space over numerous years.

Solving Issues with Customer-Centric Approach

Throughout his various roles, Maninder identified the same problems that needed to be solved: enhanced modernization and customization in the field of business intelligence. This was important across the board, at small,

As a strong business leader, whether it is a small-scale business or a large established organization, Maninder Singh would want to change the way some businesses operate in an unstructured manner and ensure all the

39

| March 2021 |

businesses stay customer-centric in their approach, Customers define the success of any organization – Manzeera’s success only follows after customer success and this mantra ensures that it has the right client-centric approach to all it does.

Undertaking Technology & Innovation As technology is a fast-growing and fast-changing industry with new solutions & tools emerging each day, one of the major challenges is to stay focused on constant innovation for its client-based solutions & to work closely with its primary and secondary stakeholders throughout the process. Whilst this is a challenge, this approach also has its advantages, with it ensuring Manzeera Solutions remains up to date and ahead of the curve with the latest emerging technologies & trends.

Furthermore, a holistic approach at Manzeera is what makes the consultancy truly unique: innovative ERP Extraction Frameworks such as GYD(Get Your Data) providing data as a service are combined with customized project management and business strategy to achieve the highest ROI & create large-scale positive impact for an organization. Sustainability, long-term results, and customization where appropriate remain at the heart of any service or solution provided by Manzeera.

Focused on Achieving Desired Outcomes Manzeera Solutions is now focused on maximizing its success by keeping the core characteristics of the consultancy – its agility and dynamic nature as well as its customer-centric approach. The growth of the consultancy will be vitally linked to keeping up to date with new & emerging trends and technologies at the same time as keeping true to its identity and roots that make the clients return customers through the company’s approaches, work ethic, and result-driven nature.

Manzeera Solutions is looking forward to very exciting times ahead, with the path to Manzeera Solutions’ most fruitful year yet being paved in 2021.

Leadership Development Initiatives On Leadership Mr. Singh’s intake is “Business leaders need to appreciate, acknowledge, and be open to different disciplines and cultures. This definitely helps any organization to strengthen its foundations. Secondly, practicing core values in day-to-day activities that truly reflect the collaborative culture of the organization and maintain a healthy working environment is key to success.

Additionally, dynamic business leaders should be highly adaptable and flexible in their approach. This will help both the leaders and the organizations in crafting strategy during unprecedented situations like the covid-19 pandemic.

Finally, employees play a vital role in every organization and therefore they are the most important asset. They play a crucial role in determining the success of the business and I strongly recommend valuing them, listening to them, and showing compassion at all times”.

“

Making the Seemingly Impossible Possible

Manzeera Solutions provides up-to-date technology while cutting down deployment time, optimizing efciency, and drastically reducing longterm costs for its clients.

40

“

Manzeera Solutions is striving to keep its investments aligned with changes in the industry & the requirements of its clients, growing and shifting in line with the market.

Manzeera is creating a strategy to expand the business geographically in a fast-growing market. The company is specifically focusing on regions where the demand for such innovative BI solutions is high, to stay competitive and reach as many clients as possible to deliver services to them, help them make better business decisions in this fast-growing and changing era.

| March 2021 |

The Trucking Industry in the 21st Century

Ellen Voie

42

| March 2021 |

Leader’s Viewpoint

W

becoming common additions to today’s trucks. Some carriers are now replacing mirrors with cameras, so the driver has a better view of the space around the 53foot trailer.

hat is your initial reaction when you are driving along a four-lane highway, and there’s a tractor-trailer next to you? Do you see smokestacks, diesel engines, and a massive machine spewing fumes into the air? Are you afraid of sharing the road with these massive vehicles?

Personal safety is also a concern. Instead of experiencing worker’s comp claims from cranking dollies or pulling the hood open to inspect the engine, we now have devices that raise and lower the landing gear with the push of a button. There is hydraulics that opens the massive hood and even cameras the show whether your kingpin has been secured or not.

If so, you need to move your perception into the 21st century. No longer are the tractor-trailers of the past even similar to what’s coming off the assembly line today. The trucking industry has embraced technology faster than many industries, but it’s not just about efficiency; it’s also about safety.

Add to all these technological advances the promise of autonomous trucks, and your tractor-trailer no longer looks like a mass of smoke and diesel fumes.

Step into the cab of a semi-tractor, and you’ll be amazed at the number of gauges, switches, and knobs. What you don’t see is an oversized steering wheel and two shifting gears connected to the floor.

The technology removes much of the physical strength needed to operate a tractor-trailer in the past. This allows us to attract and keep more women as well as men who prefer a less physically demanding job. Even the burden of loading and unloading the cargo has been automated, and the responsibility has typically been transferred to the shipper and receiver instead of the driver.

In fact, the interior cab of today’s truck resembles your car more than you realize. First, the truck has been designed to be more ergonomically correct for all body sizes, which means women are now more comfortable in the driving seat than in the past. Look at the way the dash slopes to accommodate the view out the passenger’s side. Check out the pedals that are adjustable to better accommodate husband and wife teams when one is much taller than the other.

The changes the industry is making will also help address the need for more drivers. The jobs are plentiful and offer a decent wage, but a shortage of qualified professional drivers continues. The advancements made in the area of technology not only make the trucks and the roads safer; it makes the job safer. Removing as much of the physical component also helps attract a wider range applicants.

The creature comforts inside the cab include refrigerators, microwaves, more closet space, and often a porta-potty. Lighted cup holders and even 220 outlets in the sleeper berth make it more like home.

What you might not have realized is how clean today’s trucks operate. Due to EPA standards, many trucks actually leave the air cleaner than when it went into the engine. The addition of DEF, or diesel emission fluid, has created much cleaner exhaust.

The trucking industry has adopted advanced technology; not only to comply with government regulations but to reduce its footprint on our ecological resources as well as make the job much safer.

The EPA Smart Way program also provides guidelines for fuel economy. From low rolling resistance tires to aerodynamic hood shields, trailer skirts, wheel covers, and “tails” on the back of the trailer, diesel fuel savings in the range of ten percent or more can be realized.

The next time you see a tractor-trailer alongside of you on the highway, consider how technology has created a new era of load delivery. These are not your grandfather’s trucks today.

Today’s trucks are also safer than your grandfather’s rig. The opportunities are endless to provide technology to reduce driver error by relying on these devices. From personal safety to safety on the road, there are more opportunities to make our roads safer for all of us.

Lane departure warning equipment, anti-rollover devices, side guards, and speed monitors are all

43

| March 2021 |

Marne Martin

E

CEOs of the individual businesses. Often opportunities came because they were challenging or people didn’t want to work overseas or accommodate the level of travel and personal disruption needed.

ffective leadership is all about empowering others and creating a change for the better. To lead that change requires courage to take risks, persistence, and fearlessness. An embodiment of such leadership is Marne Martin.

The ability for her to have those experiences in her 20s and early 30s was virtually unmatched and she made the most of it while also getting her MBA. Expanding and diversifying a long-standing family-owned business in primarily the telco space, to include an IPO, moving from operations in three countries to operations in 20, was a worthy and interesting challenge during her mid30s, and took her to additional countries around the world as part of the global expansion.

Embracing Challenges Marne has been an exemplary leader, who leads by example. Her corporate journey started at an early age being involved in the family’s ranching, farming and real estate endeavors. During her school years she also was able to explore different jobs and interests in summer internships knowing by the time she was 17 that she wanted to pursue an international career. When she was 21 coming out of undergraduate, she was looking for opportunity and accountability, not a “copycat” job in investment banking, finance or a big company as one of tens of thousands. She also enjoyed living in London and traveling, so desired opportunities where she could see much more of the world.

In 2013, Marne realized her ambition of being a CEO of a public company at the age of 38. Often woman get leadership positions in times of crisis when Boards don’t have other opportunities. Research has shown over and over that woman at her level have often above average leadership skills, and it is when there is a socalled “glass cliff” that a female leader is put in to save it. Taking over a company that was already listed but struggling to make the transition to SaaS and consumption pricing models, modernize its software portfolio, including launching a new mobile, artificial intelligence based and new web portals, without any significant injection of working capital, and getting it to grow faster and with more profitability was certainly a challenge, but a satisfying one to see the success. The 5 years there running a company operating in primarily ten countries with enterprise grade customers and a diverse software product portfolio was a successful

Fortunately, she went to work for a successful and entrepreneurial high net worth family that worked across telecommunication, technology, life sciences, and several other sectors with a great deal of contacts in the business and investing space. In the eleven years that she spent there, the company launched numerous businesses with successful strategic exits and even an IPO, and she moved up through the levels to be the President of that company overseeing the investment vehicles and operating companies by either being the President / CEO or managing the overseas or divisional

44

| March 2021 |

Marne Mar n, President

IFS Service Management

“In tech, we are more like coaches of an elite sports team than one might think given the talent that we hire and cultivate is such a great differentiator to success.

While our touchdowns, goals or baskets are measured in different ways, we are assembling our dream teams the same way any World Champion coach does, and also need to manage that dream team to win at a rate ideally greater than the competition. ” 45

| March 2021 |

testing ground that eventually also resulted in a successful go private.

A Take on Impactful Leadership Marne’s idea of impactful leadership is built upon inspiration, trust and respect that employees and customers can rely on. In her opinion, leaders are by their nature problem solvers and decisive, but to build the levels of trust and respect, integrity and reliability are also key. She believes that the most impactful leaders are not those that sit back and lead apart from their teams and the real-life challenges those teams are facing, but those that are also able to teach and mentor where needed.

By staying in the software industry, Marne joined IFS in 2018 as the President of IFS Service Management Business Unit. This stride was moving to a larger company that post a go private was looking to accelerate growth and gain market share. IFS in 2018 was in a great position to take its focus on service centric ERP, best of breed FSM and EAM, to accelerate growth, which it has done following Darren Roos, the CEO of IFS, joining from SAP. In her role, and with the fabulous talent cultivated and recruited in from the competition, IFS’ Service Management Business Unit has generated significant momentum, accelerating growth to 50% new license sales in 2019, and in 2020, by more than 100% despite COVID. Its leadership and customer peer insight scores with Gartner continued to showcase IFS as the leader in the service management space outpacing growth in both best of breed and platform competitors. The organization also closed one acquisition in Q4 2019 by taking a company private from Nasdaq and bought another market leader from its founder and shareholders in Q4 2020.

According to Marne, recruiting, retaining and cultivating talent is a key factor (the #1 factor in her opinion beyond her own leadership journey) to a leader’s success, but is also an ongoing challenge to invest the time in that talent, especially as organizations become larger. She always says that genuine caring goes a long way. In her opinion, talent that knows that their leaders believe in them are much more productive, the same as positive cultures are more productive.

Being an Inspiration for Women Some may say being a woman in business is a challenge in itself, but Marne has truthfully not found it so, albeit she recognizes that growing up in a a rural environment, playing sports, and generally being in male dominated environments made that common place long before her professional career. Hard work, resiliency and courage are of course part of her, but she has always found ways to differentiate herself and

Marne feels very fortunate to have interesting opportunities in her life at the right time when she needed them where she could be both successful and challenged, “Challenges are part of life, they come in big or little ways, and the only question is how one approaches, or embraces, and overcomes them” she says.

46

| March 2021 |

contribute such that she doesn’t think her career would have been any different if she was not a woman. That being said, she cares very much about cultivating more female leaders and hopefully being an inspiration for women and girls that are looking for mentors, motivation or confidence.

to seek to be impactful to them. I continue to see and sense that we are not finding the talent and the innovation everywhere it could be due to organizational hierarchies, socio-economic impediments, and also the speed and pace of global innovation not allowing us to slow down and really learn at times what matters most to our people – and sometimes also our customers. Perhaps we need efforts like Nvidian’s to be churning through innovative and inspirational ideas that we can then monetize. We have a lot of liquidity in tech, but it isn’t always deployed I expect in ways that will be the most impactful when you look out 20 or 50 years. I have seen this myself that great ideas didn’t become great companies because of a lack of talent or a lack of capital. Fortunately, here at IFS we have both.”

She advises aspiring female leaders to work hard, take chances, learn from every experience, and believe in their ability to be among the best in relevant or aspirational roles – and reach out to woman that are now in the workforce that most typically are very willing to be mentors.

Embracing Digital Innovation Moore’s law is as much about economics as it is about technology. Pertaining to a similar thought, IFS is looking to change some of the dynamics to drive return on investment in digital transformation in tangible ways that match with the bulk of our economic activity globally being service revenues. IFS cares about investing and using technology also in ways that drive sustainability in our businesses, economies and lives as an added differentiator. The way IFS utilizes economic trends, puts technology to work to deliver impactful Moments of Service to its customers and enabling those Moments of Services to be the vehicle of growth and retention for their customers, is how the company positions itself the best.

Besides, Marne believes that investments in digital transformation, and profiling internal and external talent for their capability to drive and monetize digital innovation, will continue to be key factors in the most successful global companies. She mentions that having the centricity or focus on IFS’s customer to provide technology that enables their focus to be on their customers, people and assets is a differentiator that will continue to both drive success and innovation here at IFS. IFS wants to remove the historical pain points customers have seen and believes that customers want technology that enables their business, not that constrains it. Being able to put technology and data to work is what will continue to power the business models that emerge in the future and be what the digital dream teams deliver, opines Marne.

Diverse Talent is the Key Diversity is always on the top of mind of Marne. She asserts, “Our global customers are diverse, and so needs to be our talent. It is very satisfying to me to get to know people at all levels in our organization and from all cultures

47

| March 2021 |

Neil Laughton Founder Laughton & Co Ltd

I

nnovative and impactful leadership is something that is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. If a business leader can create a compelling and inspirational picture of the future, whatever the situation or circumstances, then they will be followed.

Neil Laughton’s personal style of leadership involves trying to deliver on the above but also listening to other people’s opinions, not asking anyone to do anything that he would not do himself, and leading from the front. Neil believes in the Latin Proverb: “Fortis fortuna Adiavat” (Fortune favors the brave). He is the Founder of Laughton & Co Ltd. Laughton & Co helps individuals and companies in creating the best strategies for growth and profitability, improving leadership and management skills, and developing happy & high performing teams.

Service Regiment (Special Forces). On leaving the military, he tried various employed jobs but kept failing so decided to back himself and became a self-employed salesman for hire. This led eventually him to forming a commercial interiors business in London which grew organically. After a 17-years journey, this business had a T/O of £40 million and after delivering a high profile £20 million project at Heathrow Airport, he took an offer from a FTSE100 company and was made redundant (but this time on his own terms!) Then he decided to concentrate his efforts on helping people and organisations be more adventurous and started Laughton & Co. .

Creating a Dynamic Team Culture Laughton & Co. is an experiential training, development and events business helping individual business leaders and their people become more adventurous in their outlook, strategies, and outcomes. It does this through the principles of Discovery, Teamwork and Adventure.

By continuous learning, creating a dynamic team culture and being adventurous, the company helps its clients achieve better outcomes than they could

Helping People to be Adventurous After an underwhelming time at school, “Neil is trying very hard but achieving very little” said one school report. He managed to pass the selection process and become a Royal Marine Commando Officer aged 19 and went on to serve as a Reservist with the Special Air

48

| March 2021 |

Neil Laughton Leading Bravely and by Example

possibly have imagined themselves. Laughton & Co offers several innovative senior leadership peer group programs, developmental training courses, and unique adventurous retreats in inspirational locations both at home and abroad.

independent Associates. So, Neil tries to encourage more independent coaches, trainers and advisors to collaborate more often for the benefit of their clients.

Communicating with All Clients Being very much an in-person events business, the current pandemic has greatly impacted Laughton & Co’s normal activities. Regular group meetings have had to be cancelled, training courses postponed, and adventurous business retreats delayed. However, the company has reverted to even more outdoor events, kept communicating with all its clients online, and used the extra time to design new training programs and initiatives for when the situation improves. An example would be its brand-new experiential leadership program called "Commando Culture” - a (Royal Marine) Commando Methodology for Winning.

Encouraging More Inspirational Leaders Neil firstly advises aspiring business leaders to let them know that every successful and sustainable organization must have inspirational leaders at every level. It is generally no-good relying on just one or a handful of effective leaders, so Neil encourages aspiring business leaders to step up! Second suggestion Neil gives to them is to do their homework. He believes that not many business leaders can jump into leadership roles effectively without any formal training, close mentoring, or on-the-job practical experiences. He suggests knowing the roles and responsibilities of a Company Director, to ask lots of questions and not be afraid to seek advice from an experienced mentor before making those big decisions.

Collaborating with Complementary Practitioners The learning and development / life & business coaching industry has long been a crowded market and quite a fragmented one with millions of solo practitioners. It is pretty hit and miss whether a client will get value from just one person. There is not a single program that is run at Laughton & Co that does not involve at least one leadership associate helping Neil in the delivery. For example, The Inspiration Programme, the company’s flagship adventure retreats offering at inspiring locations around the world is run by three

Working on Principle of Honest Feedback Laughton & Co works on the principle of honest feedback at every opportunity in order that the company can continue to improve its services and to offer the best training, support and advice. Their clients are then inspired and encouraged to give referrals - the most effective and inexpensive form of client acquisition. With this open, transparent and authentic approach to their work, the Laughton & Co team can concentrate of delivering great value, with the freedom to innovate and to enjoy what they do every day.

49

| March 2021 |

Laughton & Co Ltd helps individuals and businesses develop their powers of Discovery, Teamwork and Adventure to become more inspirational leaders and develop high performing teams.

‘‘

Recognized Leadership

Neil is recognized for his exemplary leadership. Below are the few highlights from that: 2005 - Ness Award for Leadership of Expeditions; The Royal Geographical Society 2009 - You did WHAT? Award for the Skycar Expedition; Wanderlust Travel Awards 2016 - Business Personality of the Year; Brighton & Hove Independent Business Awards 2016 - Entrepreneur of the Year; The Sussex Business Awards 2018 - The Highest Dinner Party, Mt Everest; Guinness World Records 2019 - Top 30 Inspiring UK Entrepreneurs; Business Leader Magazine 2019 - Three Penny Farthing speed / distance records; Guinness World Records 2020 - Most Inspirational Leadership Development Consultancy, England; Global Business Awards 2020 - Best in Leadership Development and Coaching Solutions, UK; Business Elite Awards

50

| March 2021 |

Sukhi Jutla COO and Co-founder MarketOrders

Sukhi Jutla Taking Jewellery Industry to the New Heights

Image Credit- Fold London

52

| March 2021 |

I

t was a calling to make a valid contribution to the business world that led Sukhi Jutla to leave her corporate life and become an entrepreneur.

Upon securing a highly sought out graduate position with a top US investment bank, within a few weeks Sukhi Jutla knew it wasn't the place for her. She found she didn't actually enjoy working for banks. This then led her into management consulting which she enjoyed much more and after 5 years she set up her own financial consultancy company.

After a few years Sukhi decided she wanted to leave banking altogether and work on something that allowed her to use more creativity and have a greater sense of freedom over her lifestyle. She also became quite disillusioned with the corporate way of life. She found the 9-5 grind boring and stale. She also discovered the bigger the organisation, the slower they are to adapt to changes and make changes and this frustrated her. She wanted to do more than just wake up and go work and come home. She actually wanted to enjoy her work and feel like she was making a valid contribution.

During her time on the corporate ladder, Sukhi tinkered around with multiple different business ideas that she worked on during her lunch breaks, after work and on the weekends. That's where her entrepreneurial streak started to show up.

During this time, Sukhi wrote and published three books (using her lunch breaks to write the first draft!), re-trained as a life coach and started two other ventures in the jewellery space before settling onto MarketOrders; so, it has been a nonlinear journey to get to where she is today. That is how she came to being an entrepreneur today as the COO and Co-founder of MarketOrders.

Besides, Sukhi has been an award-winning entrepreneur for her proactive approach towards business. She is named as Top 100 European Digital Pioneer, Top 100 Woman in Tech, and '35 Women under 35' to look out for, to name a few.

An Award-winning B2B platform MarketOrders is an online global marketplace for the gold and diamond jewellery trade industry using new technologies to bring transparency, speed and trust to supply chain processes. The company is developing a

53

| March 2021 |

“

We use technology to bring transparency, speed and trust to the jewellery industry, putting the retailers' interests at the heart of our business and vision.

Image Credit- Startup Van blockchain-based marketplace and provenance chain, specifically focused on helping retailers source the gold products they need more efficiently and at better prices, turning the traditional gold jewellery supply chain model upside down by digitising every element of the customer journey.

development equally exciting and the way her company is disrupting an outdated industry. The difficult part is that when running a business there will always be things one would come across one has not faced before so he or she needs to be good at making quality decisions fast and troubleshooting most of the time.

Sukhi is of the opinion that it's vital to have a solutionfocused mindset and this is what will help her company to sustain and expand its market share in the future.

For the first time, retailers can order, pay and have their items delivered securely online. Over 90% of small, independent jewellers have limited or no online presence and less than 5% of the major suppliers have online capabilities that allow their customers to order, purchase and track products. The industry is old fashioned and lagging.

A Take on Leadership According to Sukhi, impactful leadership is about being inclusive and leading from within. She believes good leaders must practise what they preach and do what they say. They are the primary example setters in the company so it must start with being the employee you want to recruit to your company.

Most retailers wait for a wholesale salesperson or distributor to visit them in store, in order to see the product range and place an order. Digitising every aspect of this supply chain creates scalable efficiencies through the entire operational process. MarketOrders provides an online and seamless end-to-end transaction process for all retailers, suppliers and manufacturers.

Secondly, leaders should have the ability to cultivate an understanding that their team are all on different levels of understanding and motivation so having to really understand what motivates each employee and being able to provide that for them. Most people see leadership as the person standing at the front giving orders but what Sukhi learnt was that true leadership is about being at the back and observing and most importantly, listening.

Leading a New Dawn for the Jewellery Industry The changes MarketOrders is bringing about in its industry is helping the jewellery trade to buy the products they need with trust and confidence online.

The company wants to bring this industry online as it has been slow to adapt to digital transformation and it hopes its digital first approach will help to lead to a new dawn for the industry.

She advises emerging leaders to lead with their gut and intuition. She asserts, “Too often we can look outside of us for advice and mentorship - which is OK up to a certain point. So, don't be afraid to make tough decisions and to trust your gut when you have a strong feeling about something.”

Having a Solution-focused Mindset Sukhi loves that her every day is a new challenge. She learns something every day. She finds the tech

54

| March 2021 |