Meet Shakil Ohara, CFO of FreeD Group

With decades of work experience in large corporates and recently as CFO at Tsubaki Nakashima, a Japanese manufacturing company listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange, Shakil Ohara, has decided to take on a new challenge in his career and joined FreeD Group as their new CFO. We sat with Shakil to understand what made him take up this change in career and life (He has just relocated from Japan to Singapore!). ?

Could you please tell us about your career??

I am an India-born Japanese citizen and have spent most of my career in Japan. I started my career in banking, and after relocating to Japan, I switched to finance and business strategy and worked in American corporates where I was heavily involved in M&A and commercial strategy. I was in Singapore a few years back and have helped to grow the Indian business sectors of my previous company from $10M to $100M. ?

What has made you change your career track from corporate to startup? ?

It's not that much difference between corporate and startup. While corporates enjoy a steady revenue inflow, they also build new businesses to create new revenue streams and maintain the company's growth. I had the opportunity to work in corporates and startups; hence what matters to me the most is not the company's size but the industry. AI, Machine Learning, E-commerce and many more tech industries are growing fast and constantly creating new technology and products for the market. After working in corporate and traditional markets for long, I hope to change track to a "Sunrise Industry" to be at the forefront of technological innovation. ?

What has attracted you to join FreeD Group??

The open and multicultural environment of the company. Like myself, everyone in the company is a global citizen who treats people equally regardless of race, language, religion, culture and belief. The openness encourages staff to speak up and share ideas, capitalising on new and innovative ideas while motivating them to take responsibility, for driving company growth. Another reason is, of course, the business outlook. I believe that AI is an up-and-coming industry that is on the rise. With the support of increasing investors and customers, FreeD Group has all the ingredients ready to grow.?

Knowing that you have extensive experience in large corporates in many different industries, from manufacturing to healthcare, how different it is when you are now the Chief Financial Officer in a startup??

Large Corporates have rules and regulations and a more organized structure. However, at a startup, we build everything from scratch – products and processes that you think will do best for the company instead of following past references. The journey is challenging with expected and unexpected hurdles, yet it's also rewarding to grow a business with the right team. ?

What do you want to accomplish at FreeD Group? ?

My first and foremost goal is to support business growth and build a finance organization to support the IPO of FreeD group. I want to leverage my experience in IPO planning and execution to help the company achieve this goal in 2-3 years.?

As a CFO, I steer the business growth from the financial aspect and ensure effective corporate governance. I advise Abel and stakeholders on maximizing the ROI (Return on Investment) and making proper capital allocation.?

How would you describe your leadership philosophy as a finance executive??

I don't like using the word "use" but instead "develop" when managing my team. Supporting the team to develop its potential with challenging assignments and offering suggestions when needed while not overruling their decisions is paramount to individuals' personal and career growth. We need to grow the people to run the business and, in the process, tolerate some failures too. Nobody can be always right 100%.??

I have witnessed many former team members excelling in their positions and working in more senior roles. Seeing how I inspired people and created lasting change in their careers is fulfilling. ?

How do you see the future of e-commerce??

With instant messaging being the main channel of communications across generations, I believe that chat commerce will be a crucial aspect of e-commerce with huge potential to grow. Thanks to AI and machine learning technology that has laid down the foundation of chat commerce to communicate with customers in natural human language, customers can enjoy an end-to-end personalized shopping journey within the chat environment at ease.?

Fun fact question:?

What three words would you use to describe yourself??

Cool, Calm, and Confident?

What's your life motto??

Explore new things, change is fascinating?

What are your hobbies and interests???

In my leisure time, I go work out and play golf. I like F1 and Sports cars, as well as gardening. It’s great to have a beautiful green garden around the house where I can spend hours working in the garden and getting my hands dirty. Last year I even grew organic vegetables in my garden.?