The man who never takes no for an answer

You did not have any experience in the airline industry when you were roped in by Tony Fernandes to run AirAsia India. How did you make up for the lack of experience?
I started my career by starting my own company in the US in the FMCG space. It did well and we ended up selling it. After that, I was in charge of global M&As for Ingersoll Rand and ultimately ran the US market for one of their divisions by managing the P&L and mature businesses that we managed to turnaround. Then, I moved to China where I managed Asia Pacific for the business unit. I lived in China, Malaysia and Singapore and was working with teams in 17 different countries, with a (direct and indirect) workforce of 6,000 and 12 factories in the region. When I joined Egon Zhender, I went from being a people leader to a being a consultant. These roles needed a lot of agility and a lot of different skill sets. I think I have learnt something in each one my career and life experiences that can even be used here at Ai