PROFILE

Highly Qualified Professional with more than 32 years of rich cross industry and cross functional experience. Result Focused and Effective Strategist with proven ability in Leadership and Crisis management, Financial management. Core competence in Crisis Management, Operations & Business development. Talent in proactively identifying and troubleshooting management problems. Versed in Strategic management, Governance areas. Man management skills, IT savvy. Socially responsible

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

UNZA 2021-2024

Ph.d. in Management

Xavier Institute of Management, India 1999 - 2002

PGDM ( ~ MBA)

National Institute of Technology#, Trichy, India 1988 – 1992

Bachelor of Engineering - Mechanical

Balanced Score card Master Professional (2015)

Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate Holder (2008)

WORK EXPERIENCE:

Chief Operating Officer, 260 Brands (Seba Foods Zambia Limited)

Mar 2024-

• Leading FMCG Operations including Production, Supply Chain, Quality, HR, Logistics, Administration.

• Cross functional collaboration with Sales and Finance.

• Strategy development and direction to Excellence as Exco member.

• Achieved FSSC certification through rigorous process controls

Group COO, Astro Holdings ltd / Director, Smart Africa

Feb 2022- Mar 2024

Brief tenure with Astro Holdings handling 22 companies in diverse sectors of the group. Took a sabbatical to conclude my daughter’s marriage and to complete my Phd in Strategic management.

• Achieved financial closure by tactfully handling and thwarting a take over bid and saving the Group’s Lime plant operations resulting in successful restructuring of a $xxmn debt.

• Achieved 100% of Q1 targets for automotive division by personally handling key accounts and closing sales.

• Achieved completion to 70% of pending projects from levels of 5% in a period of 6 months for the construction division

• Reduced process time by more than 70% by implementing a business process rectification in workflow for approvals for many divisions

Group Managing Director, Specialised Systems Ltd, Zambia

Jul 2012 – Jan 2022

Zambia operations handling diverse portfolios including Healthcare, IT/ICT, Agrochemicals, Office Automation, Real estate

• Finalized agreement from scratch for a $30mn Greenfield Hospital project in tie up with a leading International Hospital Chain (from India)

• Handled a major cash flow crises through 2016 till 2021 due to National economic factors and later Covid , being in B2B & B2G businesses through prudent Financial management rotating cash more than 150 times in a year.

• Achieved a 300% jump in sales of ultrasound machines by creating a new market segment

• Handled Key accounts personally resulting in creating big ticket opportunities in healthcare and Telecom businesses contributing to nearly 40% of the revenues in life time services.

• Slashed payroll budgets by more than 60% by replacing many expatriate position with Nationals who were mentored and trained by me and currently hold senior positions in Industry.

Head of Operations, Safintra Zambia Ltd, Zambia

Sep 2010 – Jun 2012

Headed the Zambian operations of the Safal Group, a leading company in steel industry manufacturing world class roofing sheets. Safintra Zambia performed the highest in terms of top line and bottom line during my tenure.

General Manager, Technoton Ltd, Nigeria

Jul 2009 – Mar 2010

Brief stint with a leading HVAC company in Nigeria. Brought the company out of an imminent bankruptcy through financial restructuring of debt and held projects through creditor advances. Advanced nearly 20 out of 25 stalled projects from 10% progress to near closure of 90% in a span of 6 months.

Vice President – Operations, SPEW India

May 2007 – Mar 2009

Handled operations of a leading high precision auto component manufacturer. Took up six sigma projects and reduced defectives from levels of 30,000 per million to 500 pieces. Oversaw greenfield expansion project , Handled manpower of around 500 in a 24x7x365 operations.

Managing Director, Gayshri Automobiles ,India (own)

Oct 2004 – Apr 2007

Ventured into own as an entrepreneur. Venture was unsuccessful but taught a humble lesson that I was more successful as No.2 in an organization than No.1

Chief Manager, JCB India

Dec 1997 – Oct 2004

Handled one of the top performing regions and Channels selling Earth moving and Construction equipment. Brought in professional practices with the Dealership channel I was handling to go from selling around 80 machines in a year before I joined to around 250 machines in 2 years time. Introduced several customer delight concepts and increased parts sales from $300,000 in 1997 to $1.5 mn in 2000 making my dealer awarded the World's best JCB Dealer for the year 2000.

Engineer, Larsen & Toubro Ltd ECC Group, India

Sep 1996 – Dec 1997

Technical expertise development of Construction equipment

Junior Engineer, AFCONS Infrastructure, India

Aug 1992 – Aug 1996

Technical expertise development of construction equipment, was the first in class to be campus recruited.