Hi, I’m Gaurav Kumar
I am a management and leadership enthusiast, who is passionate about building teams, culture and organizations. I pride myself in making most of the cards that are dealt to me rather than worrying about the cards themselves.
As a strategy professional, I have spent nearly two decades helping Fortune 500 companies make better decisions through data analytics, digital technology and research. I have set-up and lead cross functional teams across four different continents and cultures – Asia Pacific, Eastern and Western Europe, North America and Latin America. My industry experience spans Consulting, Financial Services, Offshoring and Outsourcing.
In my current role, I am the Chief Operating Officer and Board Member at the Smart Cube, a UK based research and analytics firm. In my past roles I have set-up and led insights & analytics, technology, and shared service teams globally. You can find out more about my professional journey here.
I am passionate about coaching people, and spend a substantial proportion of my time, outside my day job, in coaching people. I am certified as a Career and Executive Coach.
I love writing about management, strategy, and building careers. I am cricket aficionado, an amateur squash player, a voracious reader and am out trekking whenever I get a chance.
MY Ambition
Today, more than ever, professional life is getting complex and increasingly intertwined with our personal life. The quantum and rate of change is accelerating the expectations and opportunities in the professional sphere. While the avenues available to us are expanding at the rate of knots, it is becoming increasingly complex to navigate our professional lives and career choices. This has led to peaking stress levels today as compared to any other point in time in our history.
Over the years, I have been lucky to be guided by some of the best mentors and coaches. Their wisdom, confidence in me and unconditional support has helped me progress as a person and a professional.
As I traverse my own journey of fulfilment, I am keen to consciously Pay It Forward and help other professionals progress towards achieving their full potential so they can feel accomplished and secure. Feeling accomplished substantially improves the quality for our personal lives and has a compounding effect on those around us.
If I can make a difference to even one person, I will consider it success.
What DO I PLAn To DO?
I plan to Pay it Forward and help people in their professional journey actively by doing 3 things
1:1 Coaching
1. Through Coaching, I help people reflect on and navigate through their individual professional journeys. I specialize in Career & Business Coaching. The typical coaching engagement is a series of planned and carefully curated sessions that is focused on and customized to help the Coachee with their professional goals.
Through Coaching I help people across the professional hierarchy, from early & mid career professionals to people in the senior management, reflect on their current professional state and help them navigate towards their desired professional state. It’s a personalized intervention aimed at helping you achieve your professional goals.
Perspectives (1:Many)
2. Through UpLiFt, published every Thursday, I share experiences and diverse perspectives on building and navigating different aspects of our professional life. Each edition includes
1 Life Perspective succinctly summarized
1 Professional Conundrum analyzed
1 Point to Ponder for you to ponder on
3. Through Musings, published a few times every week, I share my perspectives on leadership, management, career building, offshoring & outsourcing, and other aspects of our life.
Both UpLiFt and Musings are my attempt at sharing diverse perspectives to help us better navigate our lives. The key theme I explore is how can we progress towards achieving our potential, and thereby become more accomplished & secure. Some of these ideas come from my own experience, while others come from a thorough study of management research & leadership books, perspectives from science, arts, history, and discussions with industry practitioners across sectors & functions.
I am a keen explorer in this journey of professional fulfilment rather than someone who has all the answers. However, I do have some experiences to share, and am keen to gather more diverse experiences from literature and people alike to pass it along.