S8E08: Managing your personal energy on the CEO learning curve, with Gurjodhpal Singh (CEO, Tide India)

Richard Medcalf
Good job, Gurjodhpal Singh is the Chief Executive of Tide India. Tide is the number one SME focus challenger bank in the UK has a large market share there and India has now become its second market, as well as being a major development center for the banks platforms. Good power joined just a year ago, and he's overseeing what's going to amount to a 3x or 4x increase in this number of employees in just a couple of years. So real growth in the organization, lots of complexity, and very high stakes, because it's really following in the footsteps of a very high profile, and successful UK operations and this conversation, good pal, and and I get into the importance of mental rhythm. How do you extract yourself from all the demands of CEO on your time? How do you set up clear boundaries to manage those demands, and to actually be able to show up on a Monday morning full of energy and creativity and an executive team is a huge accelerator but if you get it wrong, it can be a huge drain on time and attention. So what's the question that he asked himself, as he recruited and sold to in many ways, his executive team to bring them on board. This is a great conversation. Enjoy it. Gurjodhpal Singh of Tide India.

Richard Medcalf
Hi Gurjodhpal, and welcome to the program.

Gurjodhpal Singh
Thank you Richard for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Richard Medcalf
Well, yeah, it's my pleasure. You are the CEO of Tide India and I know that it's the second biggest market for what's already interesting and fast growing financial services company. You've got 300 people, I think you said grown to 1000, in just about 18 months, probably. So you've seen these tremendous growth rates, three times growth, in organizational complexity, I'm sure it's already changed vastly from when you joined, you know, just a year or so ago and so I'm really looking forward to getting in to what's it like to step up into the CEO role of such a fast growing, and quite high profile company. So thanks for taking the time to explore this with me.

Gurjodhpal Singh
Excellent, I look forward to the discussion and it's been a challenging, you know, transition but, you know, something that I have enjoyed through and somewhere the pandemic has, you know, taken the level of complexity for everybody, you know, all of us, right? Yeah. up a notch. So from that standpoint, I think it's it's been it's been amazing journey, but you know, a challenging one.

Richard Medcalf
So let's let's dive in, we're gonna look at your the CEO learning curve, as I call it, what you've discovered over the first year or a year or two. So why don't we just started back at your When did you join VirtualBox? Tell everybody what is tied? Make sure we all understand that. And then when did you join? And kind of what were you doing before that, that kind of helped you secure the CEO role? Right, why were you a great fit for this particular company in this particular time? I think it's really interesting because for people who want to aspire to that CEO role, it's really helpful, I think, to understand, you know, what I want to have in my portfolio, what skills do I need to be seen as a really credible candidate?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Absolutely. So, you know, Tide is SME focus challenger bank. We, you know, our market leaders in UK having around 6% market share, and India, you know, is our second market where we are expanding into, we focus on serving SMEs and we aspire to so around 25% of SMEs globally and India, you know, as a market, you know, has around 64 million SMEs, which is 10% of the SMEs in the world. So, from that standpoint, you know, India is a very interesting and important market for us, we started out, you know, in India, early 2020, you know, and we started out with building a development center of India, which was based out of Hyderabad and we, our plan was to start with India Business, early 2020, but, you know, pandemic hit, we pushed out on the plans a bit and I joined early 21, you know, January 21, I've been in this role for a year and, you know, what, two years of pandemic we our team has, you know, grown to a size of 300 we have, you know, Development Center in India, which builds out our global product stack and now we have an early stage business in India, which focuses on SMEs. Now, personally, you know, my background, and what, what helped me get this opportunity is, you know, I, as I was discussing with you, you know, I've spent close to 13 years in financial services, and fintech so the roles, you know, that I started out, early in my career, were in financial services, and we're focusing on use of technology in financial services and, uh, you know, by education, you know, I'm a computer science engineer, and then I did my MBA. So I think this was the right educational combination for me, and I was fortunate to work in organizations where there was not focused on technology to solve for a bunch of issues in, in financial services. So that that helped and try to, you know, tied, I spent around seven and a half years at Peju, which is a Naspers organization, it is the largest payment service provider, you know, in India, in E commerce segment. And, you know, here, I built a business focused on SMEs from scratch, and scaled it up to, you know, a thriving, profitable, successful business, and post that I did bunch of other things, things that pay Naspers I think these, the, these roles had a lot of, you know, enterpreneurs element to it, right, I, I had the opportunity to build things, teams products from scratch and I think that prepped me up for the role and as such, the, you know, Naspers, you know, has a brilliant development program, they really invest in people. So I was fortunate enough to get benefits of that learning curve during during my role there. So I think my professional journey essentially prepped me to take larger responsibility, more ownership and, you know, I think doing that day in day out, essentially helped me, you know, move into country CEO.

Richard Medcalf
Right. Yeah, I think that's it's a great point, the entrepreneurial element, right. It's something which, because there's a sense of ownership, right, when you got to build something, you need to take that full responsibility, I think it's that that almost characterize this chief executives, you know, because as you said, the buck stops with you, right? At some point, you know, it's your thing, you have to completely own it. Despite the fact that things you can't directly control you have to commit. And I think that's what I'm hearing in your story. So let's, let's jump into the process. So obviously, the business was set up in, in in India, or at least in 2020, you joined a year later. And so to build out, I guess that the business element as well, the commercial element is it's a it's a very big market, but it's plenty 10% of the world market for you. And what were the biggest surprises that you discovered about being CEO? I know you had those senior roles before, but now you had this kind of large, you know, this this growing complex organization, you had the kind of the ultimate responsibility for the whole get Indian p&l and everything and what was the biggest surprises that you discovered?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Oh, well, you know, I think the biggest challenge was that I was also practically, you know, the first person to join the India Business team as such as well, and the organization was really looking forward to launch, you know, into a new market market like India. And along with that, you know, being a CEO, I think brought a lot of, you know, things onto my table. You know, which starting out May May, you know, maybe difficult for for someone to handle, I think, you know, because the buck stops with you and people, everybody wants to engage with you. I think that puts a lot of crunch on on your time and you're in pandemic, we are working remotely, right, everything happens over over calls, right. So all this put together. You know, I think starting out this, this was my biggest challenge, how to prioritize things, how to use my time more efficiently, you know, give it more to tasks, which need me more, right. So setting up a mental rhythm and algorithm for that. I think that was that was important and challenging upfront for me.

Richard Medcalf
So tell me about Tell me about that, then how did you? How did you do that? Right? What what, what works for you? Do you find? How do you? What was that mental rhythm that you put into place?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, you know, one, there are two aspects to it. One is at a personal level, right? You as a leader, you need to soak a lot in, right, you need to process a lot. And, you know, you need to get into the rhythm of of doing that. So, you know, how do you process that in your mind? During the working hours, poster working hours? How do you balance your work and life? You know, how do you switch off even when you are not at work? So I think all, you know, maintaining a balance on a personal level that that becomes very important. That's one.

Richard Medcalf
So just as a stay down on that. So what did you do? What did you do? How did you do that? Did you just decide? Did you decide like, what time you're going to leave work? I mean, how did you kind of turn that into reality?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Yeah. So you know, I think the first piece was to set up clear time boundaries, right? Yeah, that was important. Because it's, it's very important to manage your energy levels all through my career, I have felt that you no one should look forward to going to work on a Sunday evening. If that is not happening, it's a, it's a red flag. So I try and ensure that so you're putting proper time, you know, in the day, then also within your calendar, marking time for your own self, you need time to process strategy, you need time to work on, you know, strategic vision, maintaining certain relationships in the market, etc. So, you know, carve out time for that, you know, you think certain things, you know, what happened in a shorter span of time, but they don't. So carving out that time consciously is is very important.

Richard Medcalf
I can just tell you on that point, because I think it's really important to capture, I was talking with a very senior executive in a global tech company just yesterday, and really incredible person, done a lot of things around the world, move back to the home, his home markets, after going around the world doing different jobs, and got a network manager to become a superstar really, really quickly, even though you know, he starting from scratch again, in this new area, about to get a new promotion to a very senior level. And we you know, he actually asked me at one point, he said, you know, what, like, how important his personal well being, and I kind of dived into it, cuz obviously, that's a sign when someone asked you that question, and I think it was his whole question around. Does career success, you know, do I need to contain maintain this? That's unsustainable level, you know, to maintain my success. And I think his observation, which was really interesting with some of the world's most successful people, and I see this in my clients, too. They're actually superstars at home. And, you know, they perhaps they're running a marathon as well. And they're got this incredibly successful business, right. And now, that's, sometimes you scratch the surface, and there are other things going on. But I think it's also true that these things can reinforce each other. And other like to say, you know, businesses or systems and the energy flows to the lowest denominator goes the easiest way, right? The system settles in to its easiest state, like a river flowing down a hill. The river just goes where it's easy, and that's how it finds its path. And if we don't put in a barrier in our own life, then we just get overwhelmed because the river comes to us and I think what your your point about setting up those clear boundaries about your home life example, so that you do have that energy level and you've got you want to go to work creative and excited and setting those boundaries within your work day around you said vision and relationship. They're really important, I just want to go really focus on that, because that's, I think it's really key. And this leader, again, he said the same thing. It's like, I'm so focused on succeeding, you know, am I actually building the relationships that I'm going to need for the next level? Because it's not the relationships that are going to succeed this quarter is relationships are going to be successful next year or next in the next decade. Right. And it's, it's kind of trying to juggle those two things, which I think is the challenge.

Gurjodhpal Singh
Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I'm firm believer that whatever what you hear, doing the same thing will will not take you forward, right? Somewhere, as a professional, you need to process that at a personal level. And I fully agree with you, I think, you know, as a human being, if if you are a high ownership person at work, you will be high ownership person in every aspect of your life, be it, you know, in your personal family space, be it, you know, with respect to your parents, be it with respect to your friends, you know, you will play a part want to play a similar role. So, from that standpoint, in all these aspects, keeping a balance, I think that's that's a very important challenge for executives.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Okay, so we were talking about the surprises, and you said, well, the buck stops with me, and everyone wants to engage with me. And so I need to have this mental rhythm. So we've talked about boundaries, and setting up time in your diary, was there anything else around around that prioritization, you know, of your day, and that mental within that it's worth talking about?

Gurjodhpal Singh
So the other set of piece was, you know, to build that set of team around you? Who could, you know, who could do certain things as well? Or better than you? And then then let them do it? Right. So I think that's, that's also important. So through your career, you know, as you mentioned, about the gentleman you were talking to, right? The, the thing is, you need to build relationships, you need to invest in people, and you need to, you know, assist people in their growth journey and those kinds of people would, you know, would would stand with you in all, all hard challenges. You have professional life, right. So it's like, you know, you need to have people who will go to war with you at your word.

Richard Medcalf
Right, Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So let me ask you, what's, what did you have to do differently? To do that, say in the CEO role, right, was there something particular thing that you had to work on in order to do that, or perhaps was something you found different? Trying to build that team when you're the CEO versus trying to build a team when you were lower down in an organization?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Yeah. So uh, you know, building the team out the kind of, you know, characteristics you're looking at, and the kind of people you are looking at. So I think that that becomes important and at times, you know, there could be challenges in terms of when they can join, or, you know, getting to the right person, right. So all all those challenges come, but I think as a CEO when you are shooting your team But wrong, hire, you know, could set you back. So you need to have that patience. And you need to invest into that process you because you would have so many things going right you invest into the process. And you know, when you're starting something new in the market, that investment goes a notch higher. You also need to convince the person to join you, too, you need to sell your plan and vision to that team, right? Because those people are also performers in their own right. Now, how does your story fit into their story of growth, I think that's important that needs time investment energy. And I think, you know, I prioritize that to build out, you know, a team around me, which, you know, which which typically would have been three paths, there'll be some people existing in the organization, who would, you know, who would come around you. The other is, you know, some people who your work in the past with and you know, who you, again, get an opportunity to work with. And third is you also get some people from the external ecosystem, which, you know, help you make things more diverse. And, you know, you bring people from different organizations, different backgrounds, as well. So I think building this strong team prioritizing building of this, this team, I think that's, that's, that's important. For an executive, otherwise, it's, it's difficult to stay afloat, you cannot be doing everything, yourself. And, you know, I think as a leader, you need to have people who could do things in a specific area, I would say, better than you, as a leader, you, you could do things in multiple areas at a level of competence, but, you know, have the patience, and that to bring in people who who know, much, much more than you in a specific area, for example, you know, if you're hiring somebody, on the legal side of things, right, you need to be able to gauge and bring in a person who would be much, much better in that area. And really, you know, align that person to yourselves, also motivate him, learn from him and be able to add value.

Richard Medcalf
So, so if he were to look back at this journey over the last year or so, in the role, what would your, what would your top tip Be for for a new CEO? Or should we say, you know, what's the one trap, that you would recommend that a new CEO, watch out for, you know, and avoid at all costs?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, don't try to do everything yourselves. If your days are stretching to 1215 hours, there's a red flag, you know, take a step back, look at the larger picture. You know, going very deep into everything may not be humanly possible. So except, except that, you know, mortality or...

Richard Medcalf
Yeah.

Gurjodhpal Singh
About your...

Richard Medcalf
Limitations. Yeah, how etc, human limitations I, it's a really good point, often, CEOs get a lot of accolade and acclaim, and you can start to believe your own, you know, superhero nature, right. Like, if they were everybody, I'm here, I'm going to solve all the problems. And that actually is not scalable. You know, this podcast is all about multiplying your impact. And as I said to one of my clients, just the other day, he wants to do some big things like, you want to add this as a client, he said that, you know, he wants to add a billion dollars of revenues in the next three years to his business, right. Which is acceleration, which is really phenomenal. And so I said, Look, no matter how amazing you are, and he's a very high performer, it's like one high performer. With a load of followers can can do this, you know, it's not you, no matter how good you are, you will not be able to do it. You need to multiply your impact, you know, you need, you need to mobilize everybody for this mission. And that's your focus, right. And so, there's a level when you can kind of do things as you said, by yourself, kind of with people helping you and then the level where you have to kind of completely release this energy of, of everybody else, and not be the Superman, or Superwoman. So I think that's a great point. Let's let's kind of move on. I'm just aware of time. We'll go into a little quick, quick fire question round. So just in quick responses, really to a few interesting favorites. So what's your favorite quote, saying?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, it has to be that Rome was not built in a day. So you need to take time to build something great.

Richard Medcalf
Love it. And what about a favorite app that you use, you know, on your phone that really helps you in your role?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, you know, not specifically in my in my role, but in in our life, you use bunch of apps, but the ones I find most relevant are, you know, might be a little old school, but, you know, Google Apps, or WhatsApp and Uber, I think these three, you know, have been there for a while, but they are still relevant today, because they keep solving the problem to next level, and then you add a lot of value.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Okay, what about a book? What's a book that's really influenced you as a person or as a leader?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Yeah. So this this book, by Morgan Housel, called the psychology of money. Right. So it's a sharp book helps you think very differently, about not just investing money, but it's, it talks a lot about managing your time, your well being, you know, in general, it's, it's, I think, a very good philosophy to read and good perspective to, you know, lead your life. So this is a book I've read multiple times, I go back to it once in a while.

Richard Medcalf
Fantastic, I will put that into the show notes. What about it? What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well be persistent. Keep at it, you know, keep trying, and you will find a way to be where you want to be.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, great, great, great message. And the last quickfire question is, you know, who's an impactful CEO? who's made a difference? Perhaps in your life? Or who inspires you? Who would be a great guest if you'd like for a future episode on this podcast? And what do you admire about them?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, one would be tied global CEO, Mr. Oliver pill, so he's somebody who's, who I look up to, and the kind of vision and leadership that he sets. The other would be my mentor from my Peju days, you know, was John airband mukajee. So he's a mentor, I look up to, and, you know, visionary, and I really look up to his his leadership style as well.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, it's great. It's, you know, if people as a senior leader, you know, you have an impact in people's lives, right. And it does stay with people, as you said, yourself, you know, it, it makes a difference to your own journey.

Gurjodhpal Singh
And as, as in my own journey, as well, right. It's the impact is, is also subconscious, right, just by observing these people, just by observing their styles, right? You might not be meeting or working with them day in and day out. But you, you you learn and you have that that impact. And when that translates the responsibility on to you as as you become a senior leader, I think one should be conscious of the fact that there are a bunch of people in the team in the ecosystem who are looking up to you and and learning from you. So I think that's, that's a really good way for, I feel that that's a really good way to give that in the same terms, as I have got from a bunch of mentors throughout my career.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, I was talking about that yesterday with, with a friend. Yeah, this point of invitation. You know, it's, who do you surround yourself with, who you observe, learn from and get inspired by? It's one of the reasons I have a CEO community, right, I've created a CEO community of high level tech leaders, because these people often they don't have other people around them who are playing a bigger game than them who are inspiring them. And sparks fly, right? You create amazing things when you have people in a room and you know, you're not the smartest person in the room, right? You're not the most experienced leader in the room, and you actually have other people around you to learn from them to observe and to challenge your thinking. So I think that point of just the osmosis of being in the same room as people who are doing things differently and thinking differently, is essential for anyone who wants to multiply the impact.

Gurjodhpal Singh
Yeah, and a very Indian thing or or Eastern philosophy thing. I think it helps you stay humble. And I think that's that's very important. Keeping your feet on the ground. I think that's that's really important. You know, it's getting to a point in your career or getting success is one hard piece but you know, keeping your feet and ground and keeping progress from there. I think that's a challenge most of us have to face.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, for sure. So let's let's move on. Let's just look quickly look to the future before we wrap up. And no matter how much we've achieved, there's always a next level to get to. So what's the next level for tide in India as a business? Where do you go from here?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, we look to look forward to add value to a few million SMEs in India over the next three years. That's that's what we aspire to aspire to. Personally, you know, my aspiration of being in FinTech is that it enables you to take financial services to a much larger set of users much larger set of population. And within this, right, I think micro and small enterprises are one segment, which have been really underserved by the traditional, you know, financial ecosystem. And that was one of my aspirations are reasons to take up this role with time, because of the potential impact it could have on this segment. And in turn, you know, the impact on society and economy as such, you know, micro and small enterprises are the backbone of, of Indian economy, I think adding value there, it brings a lot of professional satisfaction and gratification to me, personally.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, that's, that's lovely. So I love it, you're growing this thing, you're expanding the base of financial services, adding this SME, then is micro companies, what are you going to need to do differently in the years ahead or in the months ahead? To continue to scale and multiply your own impact? What's the stretch the growth area for you? Would you say?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Well, I think the challenge is to keep the focus on on the segment, right? In, you know, in FinTech, when you are distributing digitally, it's very easy, you know, to move into different areas, right. But essentially, what it does, you know, it creates the lack of focus, you need to focus on a category. So as an organization, I think what we have done really well is we have kept the focus on solving the problem for small and micro enterprise. And, you know, a bunch of I think other players started with that category, or came into that category, but they were looking at a more wider set of users, and then you know, you you tend to ignore deeper problems. So I think that's one challenge for us as an organization to keep the focus on on enterprises, and keep solving for them and bring more value to them. I think, you know, once you solve, or bring value to them, the kind of growth you're not just in India, UK, in other markets as well, I think we could we could achieve much much or continue to achieve the kind of growth that we have done in the past.

Richard Medcalf
Hmm, let me I'm going to push you a little bit harder. I think it's great. It's a good point, because focus and not getting diluted across multiple segments, I think is really interesting point. But as you grow the company from 300, in India to over 1000, then you may try to maintain that focus and you grow your customer base. So what do you think what's gonna shift in your behaviors? For example, what might you need to be doing differently in a year's time or two years time compared with what you're doing today as CEO?

Gurjodhpal Singh
Excellent. So, you know, one, I believe what we have been solving for, right, we are a new player in the market. Today, we've been trying to solve hard for, you know, putting our proposition together and positioning us as a as a brand in the market, be it an employer brand, be it employer, you know, from brands from a FinTech standpoint, right? Because in FinTech, you need to work with bunch of partners in the ecosystem, right? And you need to have a level of you know, because it's matter of trust, right, people you're dealing with people's money. So, that that becomes very important. I think, you know, as we grow from a 300 people to 1000 people company and you know, as we have more users in the market, I think this your problem would would get solved and then we would have to you know, focus on living up to what we have promised in terms of proposition and brand, I think we need to solve for more specific pain points from SME standpoint. So in India, right specifically in India market and problems of SMEs globally are pretty similar, but there are a lot of pain points that you know, we need to solve in terms of compliance, taxation, you know, collections helping run paid for their business, and also on, on on the working capital credit for formal credit for micro and small enterprise's, so I think all these pieces, we need to, you know, focus on and bring more value to, to SMEs. So that's that's how I see this shift or or change?

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, that's really, really helpful. Thank you for that the shift in what are you solving for a really interesting way of looking at it? So final question if people want to find out more about you or about tide, you know, how do they do that?

Gurjodhpal Singh
So, you know, please come to tide.co and you know follow us, write to us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. You know, we do a lot of work with our, our members, you know, they send me stuff we sell, we call that the members because they're members of our group and, you know, we our organization, which has our members as our brand ambassadors, all our, you know, campaigns, video and other marketing campaigns, we, you know, get our real members, you know, as our stars, and, you know, if you are an SME, or if you're somebody working in FinTech, you know, do write to us, or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and you really get some decent insights into micro and small enterprise space.

Richard Medcalf
Bye, good job. It's been great to speak with you today. Thank you so much for sharing these insights. Sounds like you're in a really interesting position as the company grows and expanded into this new market. So thanks again for sharing your insights about the CEO learning curve.

Gurjodhpal Singh
Likewise, amazing discussion and thank you, Richard, for hosting me.

Richard Medcalf
You're welcome.