At BR, our aim is to bring to our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the start-up ecosystem. As part of this endeavour, we invited seasoned corporate leader & entrepreneur – Subhasis Ghosh, for an interview with us. Subhasis is a Business Leader, Entrepreneur, Investor, Start-up Mentor And Managing Partner At Apex Group.
He is frequently seen as a jury member for start-up business evaluations, sharing his insightful tips on the start-up ecosystem and its growth prospects across various events and discussion forums in the country. Besides running M&A mandates for MSMEs, he is a thought leader, angel investor, active panellist, keynote speaker on numerous events and industry meets.
Let’s learn more about his journey, his advice for our community and the way forward:
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey, please;
I had the opportunity to deliver and excel working for the government, transition to Information Systems consulting and consult reputed MNCs, then progress to a Business Leadership role, build and scale business units for 2 Fortune-500 conglomerates, and now transition to the start-up ecosystem, where I have reviewed tons of start-up plans, mentored 7, invested in 3 and 1 is still standing, So,
I have tested success and failures as a business leader, an intrapreneur, entrepreneur and investor and am now transitioning from success to significance.”
At Apex Group we help emerging businesses including start-ups connected with supply chain and logistics infrastructure, services and technology, increase their revenues through M&A and advisory services.
How do you find the industry/niche that you’re in?
Have benefited from working in several industry sectors.
The diversity of my experience in working in Defence & Aerospace, Information Systems Consulting, Petroleum, Retail, Logistics and Infrastructure in several countries and my ability to distil over 3 decades of experience, helps stakeholders achieve clarity and relatedness.
So we have found our niche moving from vanilla consulting to M&A focussing on businesses that have a significant supply chain or logistics play. Now connecting this niche to the self-education industry which is estimated to be a USD 129 Bln industry globally, appears very promising.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
I am excited to help business owners and start-up founders achieve clarity and relatedness, to scale their businesses, leveraging my diverse 3 plus decades of experience across several countries. Bringing clarity and making an impact in the emerging business ecosystem motivates me and, I am happy to share with others what took me 3 decades to figure out. Am facilitating a Mastermind for Start-up Founders & Business Owners from Diverse Sectors in the 3rd week of January 2020.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
Beyond the challenges related to global business cycles, competition and regulatory actions, anticipating and managing change and related risks, have brought me significant learning and, shaped my journey. To cope with accelerating change, we will need to also accelerate change within ourselves and that is where self-education comes in.
What comes first for you – money or emotions?
Businesses are built not only with money and effort but with information and know-how. To achieve sustainable growth, the value of services or goods that we provide should always be more than the money that we receive. While money is important to allow me to continue investing in start-ups, I think that the amount of wealth that you have is the sum total of the things that money can not buy. At its bio-chemical source, emotions are energy in motion and money is another form of energy. Good emotions lead us to attract money and I think in that sense the two are related.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Having built and run businesses connected with global trade and logistics, spanning across geographies with several thousand team members, businesses that operate 24x7x365, I have learnt to inspire and motivate, put performance monitoring measures in place and yet retain the responsibility for results.
What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person?
Taking ownership of the business or project, while balancing the strategic and tactical perspectives and maintaining my curiosity of learning In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Success is paradoxically about growing from failure to failure without losing courage. So it is good to fail early and fail often to succeed sooner.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Start only if you have the hunger for success and some money to sustain. It is smart to learn from others mistakes instead of insisting to make one’s own. Get a mentor. Am facilitating a Mastermind for Start-up Founders & Business Owners from Diverse Sectors in the 3rd week of January 2020.
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.
