CEO of Rainco outlines leadership paradoxes that enabled the company navigate the pandemic successfully
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A disruptive business environment requires skills and strategies implemented to successfully navigate through a constantly changing business landscape, keep employees motivated and meet an organisations ROI
Epitomizing the adage of ‘never letting a good crisis go to waste’ Rainco, a leading conglomerate offering a specialist lifestyle product range, has successfully redesigned and refined their business strategies to stay relevant amid the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, recording its all-time best on many fronts for the last financial year.
Anchoring it all together, has been their resourceful CEO Ahamed Aroos, who believing in mastering the paradoxes of leadership during challenging times and applied learnings he had gained to support and run the business and expand it’s boundaries.
Speaking of the journey, Mr.Ahamed Aroos, says the situation entailed in carefully balancing the organisation’s strategy, operations, business, and above all, people. “The challenging conditions demanded a different style of leadership and I felt I was able to put my learnings into practice and succeed in how I managed the impact, not just to recover, but to map out a lucrative growth plan as well,” he said.
Aroos, with his strong background in marketing, having joined Rainco as COO – Sales & Marketing and moving up the ranks to Chief Operations Officer and now holding the position of Director / Chief Executive Officer, speaking of the learnings he had implemented stated that he had invested in enhancing his business and management skills and expertise by pursuing the MBA at the Bristol Institute of Business Management in Sri Lanka, affiliated to University of the West of England Bristol (UWE Bristol), which he says gave him the foundation in terms of what to expect in this leadership role. “Their modules were practical and relevant, offering an experience with insightful takeaways, frameworks and tools that can be easily and practically incorporated into real-world scenarios, which aided me to formulate the strategies I implemented for my company during the current challenging market landscape,” he explained
Outlining some of these mantra’s, which he refers to as the 5 Es in managing people – such as enlightenment, employment, empowerment, encouragement and engagement, Aroos says resulted in shaping Rainco’s culture shift from a traditional organisation, to infuse inclusivity, inspire diversity and innovation in a meaningful way.
“One of the most important qualities of an effective leader is the ability to calmly assess a situation, solve problems under pressure and encourage trust in employees and my MBA helped me develop these skills and learn from experienced advisors and coaches” avers Aroos.
Having embraced agility and an operating model that best utilised the capabilities of all their employees, having brought them together in taskforces, to quickly adapt their activities to emerging technologies, work patterns and in shifting their value proposition to reflect the ever-evolving demand conditions and discover new growth opportunities, Rainco has been able to increase their operational efficiency and competitiveness over the last few years in both the local and global markets they operate in.
Aroos, further outlined “we have now embarked on our next journey in expanding Rainco’s global presence and are currently looking at building regional hubs in the US, East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Europe and developing different strategies for each of these markets. There’s more room for me to apply my learnings in our long-term aspirations for Rainco and I’m excited about the prospects,” he added.
The Chief Operating Officer M.J.M. Dilshad of Bristol Institute Dilshad commented “ Aroos embodies the spirit of all that we try to impart to our graduates from inception, that includes innovation, resilience and good leadership. We are understandably very proud of all that Aroos has achieved in his professional life and are happy to have given him the guidance to achieve some of this goals and aspirations in driving his company to greater heights.”
Leveraging cross-functional teams, employing creative work models, adjusting expectations and deliverables and enabling an agile enterprise, Rainco looks well on the way towards achieving their goal of being a leading global brand to watch.