Your CV helps but soft skills matter more

Most admired business leader? Why? He may not be the traditional idea of a business leader but I would have to say it’s Alex Ferguson, former manager of Manchester United. He successfully turned around a club that lived on its history to one that was a perennial winner with 38 trophies in the 27 years he managed the club. And he achieved this by building successive high-performing teams over 20+ years.

As many leaders will attest, highperforming teams are notoriously hard to assemble. Ferguson managed to do this with a combination of high emotional intelligence and great communication skills.

How do you stay abreast of issues affecting your industry?

Reading and listening to news either through the local or international mainstream media; or through online tech portals and chat forums.

Talking to people not only in the fintech space to find out what is happening but also to the man on the street to make sure that HelloGold continues to be a relevant solution for their pain points.

If you could have an hour with any thought leader in the world, who would it be and why? Muhammad Yunus, who founded Grameen Bank and was an early pioneer of microcredit and microfinance. Across the world, with the continuing advancement of technology, we have the ability to help the 98% find better ways to achieve their aspirations and financial goals. I would love to find out how he plans to realise his dream of a new, more humane model of capitalism.

What was your biggest failure and how did you learn from it? I have failed many times in many different ways because I have always enjoyed taking up the biggest challenges. I have hired people believing that they would add value to the team but I later regretted. I have worked hard on projects that I have been passionate but that ultimately failed in spite of my best efforts. Each experience has given me the opportunity to learn.

Blue or red ocean strategy? Or neither? Why? Blue as a start-up. For any start-up like HelloGold, it is simply not good enough to compete head-on against the incumbents. The incumbent holds all the cards – balance sheet, human capital, brand equity, customers, etc. The start-up must figure out how to make irrelevant the advantages that the incumbent has – as much as possible.