I grew up in India believing that business could change lives. Thirty years later, after six industries, seven countries lived and worked in, and more than a hundred traveled (117 and counting), I still believe that. What I have learned along the way is that the businesses that actually change lives are built by leaders who never forget the humans inside them. That is the thread running through everything I do.
I started at KPMG. Big Four consulting, post-merger integration, five continents. That foundation gave me something more valuable than technical skill: pattern recognition. The ability to walk into a new industry, a new culture, a new crisis, and recognize what actually matters.
From consulting I moved into operating roles and never looked back. Telecoms, Automotive, BPO, Healthcare, and AI. Each industry different on the surface. The same fundamentals underneath. Scale revenue. Build culture. Hire, Develop, and Retain people. Execute with discipline. Repeat.
A seasoned President and COO with multi-industry and multi-company size experience, I have scaled businesses from early-stage through enterprise across six industries. Most recently I led an AI-powered platform helping veterans and disabled individuals navigate the benefits they have earned. Full P&L ownership. A mission that mattered.
The through line across every role has been the same: industry-agnostic operating rigor applied with humanity. I have scaled businesses 5X to 10X. I have led teams across the US, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Philippines, and India. That experience compounds. It does not expire.
Here is something I learned leading large teams across cultures and continents: people, underneath all the difference, want the same things.
Stability. Opportunity. Respect. Purpose.
That realization became a leadership philosophy. Culture and results are not in tension. Culture is a performance accelerator, when you lead it with intention. Kindness and cashflow are not opposites. They are, in my experience, the perfect operating model.
I call it human-first leadership. Show up for the person before you show up for the title. Build trust at every level. Create an environment where people can do their best work. The results follow. They always do.
I grew up in India and carry that perspective everywhere I go. A global upbringing teaches you early that there is rarely one right way to do anything, and that the most interesting answers usually come from the places you least expect them.
I live in Atlanta with my wife Corinne and have two sons, Junaid and Aziz, who at 25 and 21 are becoming the kind of men that make everything else feel worth it.
Golf keeps me honest. There is no better teacher of patience, discipline, and humility than a game that rewards consistency over intensity and punishes overconfidence without mercy. I have played courses around the world and learned something on every one of them.
I read constantly. Stoicism. Brain science. History. Philosophy. Leadership. The books on my shelf range from Marcus Aurelius to Yuval Noah Harari to Tuesdays with Morrie, and everything in between. Reading is how I stay curious and how I stay humble.
In 2021 I contributed to Leading Through the Pandemic: Unconventional Wisdom from Heartfelt Leaders. What started as one perspective became a book. If something I have learned across six industries can help even one person navigate a difficult chapter, it is worth sharing. Get it on Amazon →
Operating Principles is a growing series drawing on thirty years across six industries. One hard-earned lesson published every week. Not theory. What actually happened, what worked, and what did not.
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