Great Leaders enable teams to deliver and bring the best out in the people. Nadeem Elahi - CEO IBEX Global

Brief Bio

 Mr. Nadeem was born in Lahore but grew up in Karachi where he studied in St. Patrick’s school for his O & A levels. Then, he went to the US, in 1989, for higher studies and did his bachelors from Brown University. Since, Mr. Nadeem’s family was in textile business and being the eldest of his three siblings he came back to Pakistan to join his father's business in 1993. He continued to look after his family business till 1998 and then left for the US. He graduated in Mathematics and Economics from an Ivey League university. He also went to the Harvard School of Business and completed his MBA in 2002.

 What is TRG growth over the years?

•  300 employees – 2006
• 6000 employees – 2019 (only in Pakistan)
• 20,000 employees – Globally
• Operations in 7 countries including US, UK, Philippines, Jamaica and Caribbean
• (Growth) 30% - 2018

What is the key to your success?

 I think there is no shortcut to success. We see people like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, whose companies are symbols of success. On the other hand, we do not consider the companies that have failed. Today, the young generation think that they will do a startup and their company will flourish. This could only happen either someone has a very good luck or a person gets a lucky shot while gambling in in Las Vegas. There are no shortcuts to hard work. You have to work hard, you have to dedicate yourself and you have to go through the ups and downs. Technology, in any business, is not a two days affair or you have made a platform and sold it. It doesn’t happen this way. You have to work through the process of rejection, and of failure.

 How do you define leadership?

 I define leadership as a combination of motivation, stewardship and guidance. You are steering people; a good leader is the one that enables people working under him to shine. If I can bring out the best in people then I would consider myself as a good leader. It is not a solo show. Good leaders are those who enable the teams to deliver and to bring the best out in the people.

What is the role of the leader?

The role of a leader is to provide guidance and to communicate a vision. The vision empowers the people to bring out the best in them. Leadership also encourages people to take risks. Failures are taken as a way to figure out what went wrong and to become professional enough not to repeat them. It’s important to empower your team, let them fail and take risks. How will you challenge creativity then? Creativity is essential especially in our industry.

What makes you a leader? Any 3 skills.

1. Perseverance
2. hard work and
3. My ability to connect with people.

What is the purpose of your leadership?

My primary purpose in business was to scale and promote the IT industry in Pakistan and I think we have achieved it to some extent by being the largest employer.

How do you learn to lead?

 I have learned different things from different people. I have learned passion and dedication for business from my family, grandfather and father particularly. And how to lead in the industry is from Zia Chishti, His connection with people is very strong. You have to connect with the people at all the levels.. It’s a gift because many leaders are unable to connect with people. The key to lead a successful company is to be able to connect at all levels. Not only at the top but also right at the bottom as well.

How did you start TRG business? Is it by chance or choice?

 I graduated from Harvard Business School, where we used to invite guest speakers. So, I invited Mr. Zia Chisti and requested him to talk to our student body. During that time he was mulling over the idea of retrieving the IT industry in Pakistan and that too not on a small scale. He had in his mind of employing about 10,000 people within 5 years. After successfully talking about this idea to our student body, we went to have lunch where the talk continued.. He had 2 or 3 more colleagues from the previous company. He told me that we would make a large IT setup in Pakistan. I was intrigued by this idea. Zia is a very optimistic person and a shining example of Pakistan. When I left Pakistan for my MBA I thought I would join a professional job and would not opt for business and I had already accepted a great offer from Citibank. But, when I met Zia and he discussed with me his new startup I informed him that I was already committed and had only 3 or 4 months’ time. After meeting him I thought, since I had 3 to 4 months, I decided to work with him. So we started working and as the time passed from 3-4 months to a year then it went on. I called the Citibank and apologized them for not joining. When we started our business it was based in the US and we opened our office in Washington, DC. 

What are the challenges of IT industry in Pakistan?

I think there are three main stakeholders and pillars of the industry:

1. Industry (top players) | 2. Government | 3. Talent

We are considering the industry and government issues that could be solved in a number of ways. For example, I have been telling the government about the Indian industry which started after several large multinationals in the US and UK like British Airways, IBM and Microsoft established their IT back offices and customer service  centers in India. As a result, gradually, their domestic companies also started to grow. If we look back some 20 years ago, in Pakistan, all pharmaceutical companies were MNCs and today how many MNCs are there? Same goes for the banking sector. MNCs bring you talent, processes, know-how and domestic industry learning.

 In addition, Citibank, IBM and Standard Chartered also have their operations in Pakistan. Standard Chartered probably has around 50,000  people in their back office in India and in Philippines. They have a huge potential, provided we are able to convince them to establish their back office in Pakistan because of the low cost as compared to India and Philippines. This will enable our economy to grow since, we have a lot of talent available in Pakistan. In India and Philippines though, their IT industry has grown but their talent has now become expensive. People are leaving their jobs and are not willing to work because of new markets. So if these companies want to grow, Pakistan has a very good environment along with tax holiday being announced by the government. The IT sector does not have income tax on their profits. So by giving some incentives to the MNCs to work here, we will be able to address the overall perception of Pakistan which will enhance process development and skill development process.

 Secondly, there are some  research institutions which are considered as gold standard  and decision makers at Fortune 100 companies look at their research before making decisions, for example McKinsey, Gartner, Forrester etc. We should persuade them to start covering Pakistan as well in their global IT rankings. Unfortunately currently in the few reports where we are featured we even do not fall in the first 20 of that list. Despite the resources, talent and cheap cost, unfortunately we are ranked at bottom.

 Where the future is heading? How technology will influence business and education?

I think e-learning and e-services will be a great tool for the future . A good friend who retired as CEO from a large, foreign pharmaceutical company has recently developed a learning platform for training in pharmaceutical industry. All one needs to do is to just sign up for ones online course that consists of one day training. After clearing the test, you will be hired by the pharmaceutical industry. Around 100,000-150,000 people are hired per year who are working as sales reps. He is the person who is disrupting old models. This platform has been made so that people can be brought to that side. The way people are changing the education model and identifying the gap between these two areas is a good point to discuss. Inviting people from the industry will let you know what the gaps are and why they cannot find the talent.

I want to share a real example, a company went to the Silicon Valley to hire engineers. They signed up people and when it came to taking the interviews the first candidate did not appear. They waited for him for about 15-20 minutes and even called him and upon inquiry he answered “oh so it’s a one on one interview and I have to be physically present? I was waiting on Zoom (Online)”. It’s clearly evident that the world is changing, and it is only necessary in certain situations to be physically present while 90% of the work is being done online. We connect to our offices, around the world, by using Zoom.

 How do you see risk taking? Do you think it has a role in your success?

 Yes, definitely I consider myself as a very big risk taker. Besides risk taking, persistence and perseverance are also very important. We should be consistent too. I have seen many young people closing down their businesses or startups on encountering a slight shock. They completely windup their projects. This is not how businesses flourish; one has to be patient. These hiccups come along with financial crunch. And we all have been through this. It’s very important you have to stay on the course. The study successful entrepreneurs and their uniqueness tells us that failure is the first step to success. I do not know anyone who has never failed.

Have you ever failed?

Before TRG I did one other startup as well for the textile industry and it was my first technology, when I was a first year student of business. My class fellow and I made a B2B exchange in textile industry and we made a platform where buyers of big firms from the USA met with suppliers from Pakistan, Indonesia and other countries and we gained some financial benefit. But eventually, we could not handle that model.

What are you passionate about? Why it is important for a leader?

I like working with people, mentoring them and see them grow and I enjoy it. So, the satisfaction is to see growth. We made teams and then developed management. I really admire this connection. Yes, it is very important to have passion and love for what you want to do. It includes many challenges though. There was a theory at Harvard Business School “built to last and built to flip”. At the same time we made companies to sell them and we also built them to last. But, anyone who makes a company only with an intention that on reaching a certain level, he will sell it off, doesn’t work all the time.  You have lots of challenges, rejections, and failures. Your product can either fail or any other situation might arise that could hinder its progress. So, what is the solution? If you have no passion, no enjoyment and no excitement for your business then you wont survive.

How important it is for a leader to win the trust of his followers and how do you do it?

I think it is very important. Trust doesn’t come from learning the core skills. Basically, trust with your employee is built through your transparency. You do what you say. You walk the talk. They will judge you, respect you on the basis of transparency and will follow you for those reasons. If you say something and do something else, it will create a negative impact and it will show that you lack the ability to listen to others. I agree that you should have some basic technical understanding.

 Trust factor develops when you speak the truth and it is not always in good times. You have to sit in the room sometimes and cope up with people and at the same time being honest, fair and straightforward to tell them about the prevailing problems like there were some divisions that we had to shut down. You will not believe but people do appreciate honesty. It’s my way to solve problems. I ask them, Can you address it? Can we address it? And people do appreciate it, they understand. Treating people with respect and being honest with them is essential to develop trust and over time it will happen. Making a speech and wondering why something is not happening, is like you’re claiming austerity and travelling in first class. Do you think people won’t see it? I think you do not need technical skills or to learn quotes to be a great leader.

 What is the purpose of your life?

My purpose of life is to be a good human being. I want to be remembered as a person who created x thousands of jobs and promoted this industry. For others to follow, for creating an impact and leaving a legacy in this industry would be great.

 Besides TRG, do you remember any work which has created an impact?

An interesting project, in TRG few years, back was great. We took children from second tier primary (Urdu medium) schools and tested them for IQ and selected a group of people, we taught them English, statistics, artificial intelligence and coding and we sent them for undergraduate degrees in the US. Fifty students graduated from that program. They all are settled in America and some of them work for us. We really made a huge difference in the lives of those people. We continued this program from 2010-2014 and it was named as ‘’talent hunt’’. But later due to financial issues we had to stop this program for some period but we will re-launch it.

Your message for youngsters.

There are no shortcuts to success. One has to go through hard work and perseverance. It is a matter of sweat, blood and tears. In order to be an entrepreneur one has to go through different stages. It is not necessary that everyone gets ready for the entrepreneurship at the same stage. Some of them need financial stability, some people like me jump right into it. It’s one’s own level of risk. So, know yourself and your purpose, and don’t get into the philosophy of quick money.