Lubaina Sheerazi
CEO & Co-founder BRANDit
Lubaina Sheerazi spearheads BRANDit to make it a trusted partner for her clients and help them navigate the diversity, scale, and complexity of India. She brings with her indepth knowledge and understanding of the intricacies of outbound travel. She provides deep insight, sound counsel, and seamless execution to numerous tourism boards and hospitality brands.
An innovative outlook gives Lubaina’s strategies and associations a creative edge over her counterparts, resulting in remarkable outcomes across brands. Her first success story was branding Oman as an exotic leisure destination in India, which involved a shift from its well-established image as a mundane destination for Indian labour. Lubaina’s strength also includes bringing a fresh perspective for existing popular choices – taking Thailand as an example – by repositioning the destination through various PR and marketing activities; the team managed to sustain Thailand’s position as the top holiday destination choice amongst Indians.
While it is difficult to establish a rapport at all levels, Lubaina tries her best to be close to the team. One upside of the pandemic was that it gave her time to connect with the team at a grassroots level. She believes in measuring and balancing employee productivity, keeping them highly motivated and engaged while also maintaining a work culture, even as they gravitated towards remote working. To her, the true foundation of an organisation is not just its leader, but the team as a whole. So, she believes in empowering each individual by honing their skills and helping them recognise their full potential in creating value and delivering results, not towards clients alone, but themselves too.
“As a leader, one must be self-aware. Your attitude and response towards those around you define your energy and how it affects others. I also believe that one must be agile; be quick to adapt to changing circumstances and seize the opportunity with the determination to thrive outside one’s comfort zone.”
Empathy is a critical leadership skill that one needs to practice, even more so in today’s time, feels Lubaina. The key is to listen, observe, and act appropriately in a given situation. However, she cautions that it is important not to get trapped by emotion but to initiate a supportive, solution-driven approach that helps an individual achieve great success. She reminds us about the quote the famous American poet Maya Angelou once said, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Next Vacation: She sees herself planning a European vacation for her next holiday.