As part of our relentless pursuit to identify and share with our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the leadership world, this week we spoke to yet another Passionate and Purpose-Driven Leader Atul K Sharmaa to understand more about his journey, his vision and the way forward. He is an Accomplished Finance leader with a proven history of working in the e-commerce, service industry, supply chain and product-based companies. He has helped raise over $250 million by way of Equity & Debt funding. He is known to have set up many finance teams from scratch. Let’s learn more about his incredible journey so far!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Atul:
Talk us through your background and your journey, please;
I have quite a mix of industry sectors in my professional journey, ranging from Commodity Trading platform, service industry, LPO, Online B2B of FnV and Content commerce.
Post qualifying Chartered Accountancy, I joined the Business Finance team at Eka Software Solutions, Bangalore. Eka Software Solutions is a global leader in providing digital commodity management solutions driven by Cloud, Blockchain, Machine Learning and Analytics.
Thereafter, I worked with companies like TESCO, ClutchGroup and Ninjacart in India, owning the finance function, funding and business growth mandates.
Currently, I am heading the finance for Trell. These opportunities helped me span a wide variety of finance domains.
How did you discover your passion?
After working in both Global and Indian MNC, I realized that ownership is something that keeps me driving. I enjoyed taking up new tasks and successfully executing them gave me immense joy.
In the current ecosystem, Startups are the ones that let you experiment, own things up and enable cross-functional work culture.”
In due course of time, these initiatives helped me identify the areas of my core passion – Startups. It was essentially about arriving at a just to explore what really resonated with my personality and life choices.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
The excitement of successfully delivering a project/assignment is something that keeps me on my toes.”
The underlying advantage here is that I learn something new and that adds to my cross-functional knowledge base.
An opportunity to experiment with stuff in an unknown terrain and getting a successful closure is how I pamper myself.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
In one word, it is my “Family”. My father, mother and brother are the ones who taught me at a much early stage the nuances and fundamentals of managing Life and the world around it. It is their wisdom and guidance that has enabled me to grow both personally and professionally.
The other most important part of my family is my Wife, Punam, and my daughter, Aanya.”
I am grateful to Punam, who totally understands me and what responsibility I bear on the professional side. I must say that Punam helps me manage my ‘Work-Life Balance”. Last but not the least, all thanks to Aanya whose smile and playful nature helped me survive the “work from home” during this pandemic.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
You can call it as strategies or characteristics, I think of these few that help me in any situation.
1 – Honesty
2 – Ownership
3 – High-risk appetite
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
My motivation comes from books and documentaries. It’s the learning and real-life struggle of great leaders that pushes me to go the extra mile.
The motivation to work hard and practice and stay disciplined comes from the desire to master my skill to keep learning something new.
Lately, the one book that I enjoyed reading was “Ikigai”. I would recommend this book for all professionals.”
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
There are no sure shot sets of keys to success, however, if I were to share my keys to success I would mention these:
(a) Honesty, be it towards your role, team, seniors or company.
(b) Take ownership for whatever you do.
(c) Always learn something new
(d) Build a team that respects and loves you (be a leader and not a manager)
(e) Hard Work (The only shortcut to success is Hard Work)
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Finance is not just about numbers, PnL, Balance Sheet, MIS, but it represents the entire business in terms of money. Unless a finance guy understands the business or organization, he will not make any sense to the audience.
Most early starters get lost among finance verticals within the first 5-7 years and find it hard to switch roles after that. So before one settles for any role/vertical, they should have exposure in different industries or functions within the same industry. The diverse exposure gives the confidence to try hands-on unknown terrains.”
Career decisions require a long-term view of what comes after and a good understanding of personal skills and ambitions.
There is a lot to share, but this conversation limits how much I can communicate on this platform. Students and young professionals do reach out to me on LinkedIn with their specific queries.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
