Leadership Is A Privilege And Not A Right: Suhail Sameer, CEO-FMCG, RP- Sanjiv Goenka Group

There are certain key decisions taken by company leaders that make a huge difference. Those decisions are possible only if founded on solid experiential knowledge. Sharing with the audience a breadth of such lessons, eminent dignitaries participated in the panel discussion themed ‘What Business Leaders Need to Know?’ are Suhail Sameer, CEO-FMCG, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group; Nihir Parikh, Chief Business Officer, Nykaa; Priyanka Gill, Founder & CEO, Luxeva India and PopXO; and Rajesh S Lalwani, MD, Scenario Consulting as a moderator. 

Speaking on one of the earliest things one should focus on when starting a business, Sameer, said, “The focus should be on how you can get your product validation.” Narrating the story behind his famous product Carvaan, he said that the idea was to make a product that had a high-quality music performance without one needing to be a tech-savvy person in order to use it. Emphasizing on the importance of accountability, he demonstrated, “If you complain about Carvaan portal regarding a decline of sales, within two hours it will be replaced.” 

Speaking on how he deals with the increased chaos and information overload, Parikh stated that in a day he says more nos than yesses. One of the key things he makes sure that every decision that his company performs is overlaid with logic such that it provides value to the customers and to the company.   

Gill informed that one of the things she does every day is checking sales that have happened the previous day. Sharing an interesting anecdote of success, she narrated, once during her birthday she ran a campaign TagAPriyanka, and it got terrific success. Later her company did so with the twenty most popular India girls’ names and got a similar response. 

On the most important lesson that Gill has learned in her journey, she stated that one has to continuously educate oneself and so read constantly. Talking about a lesson learnt from his own career, Sameer said, “Leadership is a privilege and not a right; you have to constantly strive to improve, hire people who know more than you.” Parikh informed the audience that one of the most important things in running a company is ‘balancing a building’. The people who are working at the bottom and holding of the entire company should be empowered, he added.