The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to Follow in 2022

Leadership Redefined

Enroute to Success

Chairman & Co-founder Virtuzone

VOL-04 | ISSUE-05 | 2022

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Editor’s Desk Innovative Leaders, Innovative Businesses

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nnovation is synonymous with creativity, as freeflowing creativity involves a great deal of risk-taking.

An innovative leader has high-risk tolerance, considering every possible outcome to make wellresearched bets to do the best for the employees and the organization. A capable leader has every aspect of the organization covered in their plan, adapting a 360-degree in every decision. All the risks are taken based on employee appetites for pushing their limits and experimenting beyond the usual areas of interest.

Technology orientation among several industries is advancing rapidly. With the introduction of the metaverse and web 3, companies have a surge of technical experts and employees. It is necessary to have the required domain expertise to communicate effectively with the team, radiate a unified vision, and gel the organization into an effective group. With sound knowledge of the processes, Leaders can head the company towards a better future.

Innovative leaders go a step further, having an in-depth understanding of all company departments. Only with the knowledge of the existing process can leaders think of new ideas and innovations. Most of the disruptive changes in the technological world are brought about when a small problem is identified and fixed. Most of these minor problems are hard to spot for general employees. It requires attention to small detail in the eyes of a leader to identify these minor problems and, more importantly, work on them in favor of the company. The ability to notice things that may have gone unaccounted for will help innovative leaders make accurate assessments and determine the best solution to a problem.

A recent trend has seen that maximum innovative leaders have one trait in common- confidence in their team. Once

the leader has gained confidence in the team, a free hand is given to the employees to experiment and try out new ideas. A leader asserts confidence in the team so that the team feels encouraged to take risks, go away from the track and come out with distinguished results. This confidence may not pay out every time but will pave the way for trustbuilding, and the few jackpots will make it up for failed attempts. A confident leader, employees, and teams are the pillars of an innovative environment.

A good result requires good efforts. Leaders are spending more and more on R&D departments so that the best facilities are provided to researchers to make innovative inventions and ground-breaking processes. An innovative leader knows the value of an advanced R&D department as much as an innovative employee and pushes the boundaries in the company's best interests. With the support of his staff and machinery, a leader can create the best innovative products and services.

Thus, Insights Success embarked on a voyage to find such leaders in this edition of "The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to Follow in 2022."

While flipping through pages, have a quick rundown of the articles written by our in-house editorial team.

Happy reading!

Raunak Raunak Mhetre

raunak.mhetre@insightssuccess.com

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Cover Story

Neil Petch

Transforming Businesses with Trust-Based Leadership

ARTICLE

CxO

20 Leadership Redefined Enroute to Success

28 Leader’s Viewpoint Franchise or Startup, Which is Better?

contents 16

JOHN CUSHING

Accelerating Decision Making with Data and Technology

LEIGH RUST

24

Passionate About Personal Development and Constant Learning

32

MIRNA SLEIMAN

Impacting Lives by Bringing Financial Inclusion

PAUL GUENTHER

Leading with Inventiveness

36

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor Raunak Mhetre

Assistant Editors Jenny Fernandes

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Sonia Raizada

Shyam Sonawane

Senior Sales Manager

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Matthew Smith

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Martin

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Trimukh

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Atul Dhoran

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Database Management Stella Andrew

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com April, 2022

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Company Name

Featured Person

Brief

Arlin Sorensen CEO

HTG Peer Groups htgpeergroups.com

HTG Peer Groups’ vision is to connect leaders by fostering authentic relationships and opportunities for sharing.

David Kelly CEO

KPS kpslife.com

KPS deliver functional services through a progressive model one that taps the best clinical ops professionals in the industry, supports them to do their best work, deploys state-of-the-art technologies, and enables full system integration with Sponsors.

Daniel Wilson CEO

Entegra Europe entegraps.eu

Entegra Europe is a margin enhancement business supporting the hospitality and catering industries across Europe.

Jon Winsett CEO

NPI npifinancial.com

NPI is an IT procurement advisory services company.

John Cushing CEO

mnAI mnai.tech

mnAI aim to reduce the time it takes investors, companies and individuals to identify, and then understand an industry, business or directors and shareholders from months to minutes.

Safetyline Jalousie Louvre Windows

Leigh Rust Founder & Director

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.

Mirna Sleiman CEO

Fintech Galaxy fintech-galaxy.com

Fintech Galaxy is an Open Finance platform that fuels innovation and seamless integration in financial services.

Mike Utting CEO

SpringTide springtide procurement.com

Springtide focus on changing attitudes towards procurement and go beyond cost savings to deliver enduring value across whole organisations.

Neil Petch Chairman & Co-founder

Virtuzone www.vz.ae

Virtuzone provides a one-stop-shop solution for entrepreneurs who want to start a business in the UAE and for international companies looking to establish their presence here.

Paul Guenther CEO

Knowledge Hub Media knowledge hubmedia.com

Knowledge Hub Media has been a leader in delivering tech news, expert opinions, and the newest and most relevant white papers, webinars and case studies across all industry verticals.

Neil Petch Chairman & Co-founder

Virtuzone

The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to Follow in 2022

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Neil Petch Transforming Businesses with Trust-Based Leadership

If you are an entrepreneur, you are going to be looking at your phone at 3:00 in the morning. So do something that you love. Focus on what you are really good at.

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hen entrepreneurs hit the wheel in the right place and time, they drive businesses with innovation and resilience. Starting from incorporating value-based work culture to inculcating trust within the workforce, business leaders yield fruitful results for organizations. One such visionary leader is Neil Petch, who founded Virtuzone to facilitate company setups in Dubai and UAE with a vision of transforming businesses through visionary leadership skills.

Embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, Neil faced multiple challenges turning every obstacle into a business opportunity. He launched a radio station, newspaper, and publishing company called ITP that grew up to 70 magazines and 600 people in his early career. Neil realized media's potential in driving any business likely to be profitable. As per Neil, one may be an expert at a given skill or a phenomenal workflow, but multiple factors are at play, including the ability to market to people.

Overcoming Challenges Inspired by his best friend's experience setting up an outdoor advertising company in Dubai, Neil realized a need to provide quasi-governmental services to entrepreneurs willing to establish a business in Dubai and UAE. Neil shares, "He wanted to set up an outdoor advertising company but encountered many stumbling blocks along the way. He couldn't get a hot desk, and it was challenging to communicate with the free zone he wanted to set up in.

That's when he realized there's an opportunity in this market and shared this idea with me."

Make mistakes and learn from your mistakes.

They established Virtuzone with a universal name that people could easily associate with. He says, "Back then, we were competing against Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, and Fujairah, names that are, to the non-Arab speaker, a little foreign. We deliberately wanted to be approachable and modern."

While in Dubai, Neil observed that the decision-makers for most businesses were based in Europe. It was challenging to convey to people about the business opportunities through a remote mode of communication. Another challenge was building his team. He says, "You need someone in your team who says 'Yes, we can do it!' and believes 100% that it's possible, but you also need someone who thinks about the implications and ramifications."

At Virtuzone, Neil assists businesses with company setups in Dubai and UAE, taking care of all the red tapes involved in the UAE free zone and mainland company setup process.

Being 13 years in the business, Virtuzone was able to compete and maintain a strong position in the market due to its three essential pillars- brilliant processes, excellent customer service, and fantastic marketing. Talking about the company philosophy, Neil notes, "What we seek as an entrepreneur is an ambitious person with a vision. If we don't conform to ourselves, we wouldn't understand them.

I'd like to think that Virtuzone is created in the image of our customers."

On a Mission to Nurture Entrepreneurial Spirit Neil is committed to enabling entrepreneurs to conduct their businesses safely, efficiently, and in a conducive environment to succeed. He puts, "When you're in outer space looking down on Earth, you don't see borders. You don't see a point where you have to hand in your passport, and that is what we want to achieve. Yet at the very center of that world, we believe that there's an opportunity for the UAE to be the startup capital of the world."

Neil understands that entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the global economy, and Virtuzone's job is to make sure that anyone who is an entrepreneur will have an effortless experience setting up their business. With about 60 different jurisdictions that one can use in the UAE, having its pros and cons. He asserts, "It falls upon Virtuzone to hold the hand of the entrepreneur, save them time and money, and make sure that they get it right the first time because there's

nothing worse than embarking on a journey, going the wrong way, and having to do a U-turn after six months."

and high efficiency, Neil is making a significant impact in facilitating company setup.

Neil emphasizes solving challenges and providing a safe passage for businesses willing to set up a company in Dubai.

Virtuzone has started investing in select startups, such as Hotdesk. It also joined BY Venture Partners' USD 50 million venture capital fund to support early-stage technology startups in the MENA region and globally.

Envisioning Future Neil envisions scouting for the hurdles faced by entrepreneurs and working to mitigate them. "You want to keep it as easy as possible for people to set up, to live in the country, and to have a working company. Which means they need a bank account. They need a telephone. They need a business address. It's not just about giving them a license.

It's making sure that they can conduct their business," expresses Neil. While businesses grow with fewer hurdles

Speaking about the future goals for the company, Neil marks, "We want Virtuzone to be synonymous with entrepreneurship and startup success. You may have heard that the UAE is aspiring to be home to 20 unicorns in the next decade. As we have always aimed to align our goals with the government's vision, we also seek to enable and nurture these startups and their founders and help them achieve regional and global success.”

Making an Impact Being at the helm of transforming businesses through company setup support service, Neil works with 400 to 500 companies every month.

He mentions, "Virtuzone is just the catalyst. We are the thing that makes it easier for someone from London or Canada to run their global business from Dubai. I want us to champion that, and I'd love to go out there, to the rest of the world, and tell them why they should be here."

Impactful Leadership Neil is focused on trust-based leadership with an approach of a business catalyst. He mentions that one thing that

makes leadership have an impact is trust. Over the years, Neil has continuously been invested in his people's professional and personal well-being.

He mentions that, during Covid, the company had to take care of 110 people with probably 90 families. Every one of 110 staff members viewed that as a common challenge, rather than being forced to opposite ends of the room being like managers and employees. That's when Neil learned that the investment he had made in gaining everyone's trust had paid off.

Talking about team building, Neil suggests recruiting people with strength in areas you don't. He adds, "One of the things about leadership is to be confident and not feel threatened. If you find a peer who does well and your first thoughts are that you're happy for them, then I would say that's a good sign that you can go on to bigger and better things in the future."

Driving Businesses with a Positive Work-Culture

Don't take shortcuts.

Neil has focused on establishing trust within his employees as a team-building effort and expects his workforce to push themselves beyond their comfort. He puts, "We have come to a point where we can say to our staff, 'We want you to make mistakes.' If you're not making mistakes, you're not pushing yourself hard enough."

Being committed to practicing innovation, Neil feels fortunate for thousands of supportive customers that enable him to start pushing at the envelope. He believes in making the process more automated to help something happen a little bit faster, driving tiny margins to do huge businesses.

Speeding Up with Technology Automating company workflows has become an essential factor since the pandemic. Neil tries to anticipate his customers' challenges and develop corresponding solutions accordingly.

When face-to-face meetings were restricted during the pandemic, he had partnered with trusted service providers who helped him facilitate remote company setup for his clients.

Neil can even help his clients start their bank account opening process online.

Talking about leveraging technological advancement to make services resourceful, Neil says, "We always review and scrutinize our internal processes, adopt the latest software and systems, and continually increase our efficiencies and the quality of our customer service. The better and the faster we can serve our customers, the more we make entrepreneurship accessible."

organization like Virtuzone can guide you through it and can help you."

"If you are an entrepreneur, you're going to be looking at your phone at 3:00 in the morning. So do something that you love. Focus on what you're good at. And as I say, look to recruit colleagues in areas where you are weak.

A Step towards Kindness Neil advises budding entrepreneurs, whether they be 18 or 60, it's never too late, and it's never too early. He says, "First thing is, the best financial decision you can make is not to jump into something underprepared. Do your research, speak to your network. Do not be afraid to ask for help from your family and friends. Ask them to tell you the truth; ask them to play devil's advocate to your idea."

"If you do that research, then one of the things it is going to show you is the benefits of starting a company in Dubai.

And when you finally take the leap, make sure that an

"Finally, stepping outside of what we've been taught forever. Re-evaluate the rules. Find out which ones work for you and find out which ones you can rethink and reinvent," Neil concludes.

The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to Follow in 2022

Mirna Sleiman

Impacting Lives by Bringing Financial Inclusion

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reat business leaders have to adapt to different styles and attributes of leadership based on the different circumstances they face. However, the one aspect of leadership that never changes is the ability to lead from the front by taking responsibility. Today, leaders are driven by innovation and passion to create positive impact through their talents, skills, and abilities. One such innovative and passionate leader is Mirna Sleiman. Mirna is the Founder and CEO of Fintech Galaxy, the MENA region's open finance and innovation platform. She is advising governments and financial institutions on digital transformation programs. She has more than 15 years of experience in innovation programs, government affairs, investor relations, journalism, strategic digital communications, and global partnerships.

financial institutions and fintech companies. From scouting to deployment, Fintech Galaxy aims to build future of financial services across the 22 Arab countries. The Fintech Galaxy Open Banking API sandbox enables development, testing and deployment of fintech solutions, offers a marketplace that connects institutions to thousands of fintechs from across the globe, and delivers matchmaking and crowdsourcing capabilities that solve customer pain points, ultimately spurring disruptive and transformative innovation across the financial services industry.

Delivering Inclusive Financial Services

Facilitating Integration of Financial Institutions and Fintech Companies Fintech Galaxy fuels innovation in financial services, drives ecosystem collaboration and facilitates integration between

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Fintech Galaxy is a regional platform that fuels innovation in financial services, drives ecosystem collaboration and facilitates integration between financial institutions and fintech companies.

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Fintech Galaxy was founded in the United Arab Emirates in 2018 as a regional platform. From day one Mirna’s focus was to use the Fintech Galaxy brand as an enabler of innovation, so she had the dual responsibility of creating a platform and a space for the industry to come together, and the everyday job of building its own brand and developing a scalable business. It was clear to Mirna before she founded Fintech Galaxy that moving the needle on financial inclusion was critical for Arab world. There was also a need to connect global fintechs with a regional open finance platform that includes an API sandbox, a fintech marketplace, and enables cross-border open innovation.

These important objectives, which ultimately are all about creating a future that delivers inclusive financial services, serve as a long-term guide and they underpin much of what Mirna does day-to-day.

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Mirna Sleiman Founder and CEO

Fintech Galaxy

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colleagues. When Mirna hires somebody, she looks for the personality and the attitude, the right skills, and the right outlook: a can-do, passionate, and ambitious individual. She then wants to provide them with the most positive, can-do, enabling environment within which to succeed. She believes in having an open-door policy and a fearless culture that says, ‘never be afraid to ask, to question, or do’.

Embracing New ways of Doing Things

Accelerating Move to Cloud-based Innovation Mirna opines that the pandemic has clearly contributed to the acceleration of digital transformation across every conceivable industry, and the way that organizations interact with consumers. The move to Cloud, which was already well on its way, is expedited, thanks to the emergence of myriad new AI-powered solutions and services. AI is now better understood by more people, thanks to the behavior shifts we have witnessed as a result of the pandemic.

Whereas before Covid-19, many people were aware of AI and its connection to 4IR possibilities, but now market is in a place where businesses – particularly service providers – have been forced through circumstance to understand what it delivers, and in some ways forced to sharply focus on what these technologies are and how they improve what they do.

According to Mirna, the key to sustainability is innovation and passion. She never loses sight of why she founded Fintech Galaxy: to impact lives and bring financial inclusion to the Arab World. To achieve this, she stays grounded and accessible by listening, learning, and watching as much as she talks and does. This reflects having an open mind to collaborate with industry partners, work with regulators, and understand the needs of the startup community. Embracing new ways of doing things is what Mirna preaches, and as leaders it is of utmost importance that we practice it too.

Being Open to Learn In her advice to emerging CEOs, she says, “Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Find your voice, build your niche, and get noticed. This is not about ego, but about finding your place within the industry so that you can navigate towards the right people and ideas. In ‘normal’ times, I would work hard to attend panel discussions, speak at forums, and share ideas and experiences with my peers.

That’s incredibly useful because there is always somebody else out there with a new perspective to learn from. The beauty of the digital economy is we can now do all of this – and more frequently – through webinars and other online forums.”

The reality is that cloud-based platforms are a no-brainer in a post pandemic environment. Open finance platforms, in particular, offer a level of connectivity and immediacy that was impossible a few years ago. Businesses can pick up innovations, adapt them, trial new approaches, and launch new products and services faster and with more precision than ever before. Businesses have a duty to engage with new cloud-based innovation platforms fully and competently to futureproof what they do and serve their customers well.

Providing the Enabling Work Environment About work culture, Mirna believes that if businesses don’t have a positive work culture they don’t have positive

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The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to Follow in 2022

Paul Guenther LEADING WITH INVENTIVENESS

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he great entrepreneurs are driven by core confidence and competence. They are not fearful of pressure. They actually crave pressure and thrive under it. They exhibit courage and grace even under pressure. They understand the importance of fairness and always maintain a level playing field. They demonstrate logical and efficient decision making. They think deliberately and act on conclusion of logical thought. They don’t let emotions cloud their judgement or drive their decisions. They are rational and practical in their decisions.

The great leaders demonstrate total accountability and possess an unwillingness to make excuses for their shortcomings. They know how to get job done. They seize opportunities and make them count. They don’t recognize failure. They know there are other ways to achieve their intended result. They find one of those ways with their inventiveness. One such practical and inventive entrepreneur is Paul Guenther. He is the CEO of Knowledge Hub Media, a company that helps business professionals by providing useful insight and analysis on the most current topics within their industry, and across multiple job functions, including IT, marketing, finance, human resources, mobility, operations, sales and more.

Minimizing Mistakes and Maximizing Efficiencies The most of what has always driven Paul comes from a few different things. First, complete financial independence for himself and those who work for him. Second, total accountability. Third, an unwillingness to make or accept excuses.

Paul holds himself and everyone else to the same standard.

He recognizes that nobody is perfect and everyone is going to make mistakes, but the idea is to minimize mistakes and increase overall efficiencies. A lot of this happens naturally when everyone understands a culture of accountability.

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When a question needs to be answered or a problem needs to be fixed. It doesn’t really matter “why.” What matters is to attend it, and that Paul believes in doing that efficiently and effectively.

Delivering Engagement Opportunities for Clients The offerings of Knowledge Hub Media are diverse by their very nature. Its core competencies fall in the areas or demand generation and content syndication. It offers multiple engagement opportunities for its clients to effectively reach their target audience(s) through high impact online advertising, content syndication and demand generation programs. It promotes its clients’ white papers and webinars to generate and deliver highly targeted, highly qualified B2B sales leads. As each of its clients have different products, solutions, and services, they target different segments of people (and companies). Its offerings are customized, fully tailored to target folks within the right job roles – at the right companies – who are typically already in the buying cycle for its clients’ solutions.

Generally speaking, the leads that Knowledge Hub Media generates originate from companies that are, at the very least, currently researching the solutions offered by its clients. In most cases, though, they are in the process of evaluating vendors and getting ready to make a purchase decision. This is where it comes in, where it really shines.

By promoting to very targeted groups of people, it lines its clients up with the perfect buyers, at the perfect time. That is, companies that not only have a need and budget for the products and services that its clients offer, but that are also ready to pull the trigger and make a purchase decision.

Leading from Front Paul mentions that clients of Knowledge Hub Media are all very unique – even if they do generally reside in the B2B technology sector. Each client has a specific solution, or

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Paul Guenther

CEO Knowledge Hub Media

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group of products, that is targeted to a very specific audience. For example, enterprise software solutions used

by IT people, marketers, sales teams, HR professionals or finance professionals. The targeting gets a lot more granular than that, and then not only are the job roles unique, but the types of companies targeted are also unique to each client.

Some might be looking for SMB’s, while others might promote to mid-market companies, or enterprise sized organizations with 5,000+ employees.

Being at the helm is always interesting for Paul as he faces with a new challenge almost every day. Those challenges are not just from a standpoint of sales (managing clients), but also involves marketing (to its userbase), operations, finance and handling its technology infrastructure. There is truly never a dull moment for Paul and the Knowledge Hub Media.

Besides, the readers of Knowledge Hub Media values and trust the suggestions offered by its expert bloggers, trending news articles, and extensive research library to facilitate strategic development, project management and to make intelligent purchasing decisions.

Staying Ahead of the Curve Media industry is inherently based in technology, and as

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“Make money. That’s the name of the game. If you are making money, and your employees are making money, and your clients and vendors are making money as a result of your business process, you are doing a damn nice job." such, it is always changing. For this reason Knowledge Hub Media is changing and innovating. It has experienced annual revenue growth year over year in 11 of its 12 years running, but Paul’s vision of the future is never revenue or sales based. He likes to think that in five years, company will be at least “five years more advanced” than it is now as a company – just as technology advances each and every year. Optimally, though, Paul likes to think that it’ll be closer to 10 years more advanced in five years; staying ahead of the curve, just as it has been since its inception.

Being Realistic Knowledge Hub Media is very proactive about never “overpromising and underdelivering.” It forecasts for lead output and delivery as well as anyone in the industry, and it is usually dead on. Even so, it is typically conservative with the projections that it gives clients. This provides another layer of protection that helps to ensure things go smoothly and it keep its promises in terms of goals.

Not being Affected by Externals Paul sustains his leadership just the way that he has always done things. His leadership approach rarely changes based on wavering circumstances or external forces – including this current era of ever changing, ever improving technology. To be clear, though, external forces or changes can have an impact on company’s strategy, for example, or the products and services that it currently offers. But external forces have very little – if any – effect on Paul’s leadership spirit.

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