With more than 23 years in the technology industry, Sameer has worked in different types of firms and held key management roles in large global organisations like Vodafone & Amdocs. At i-Admin, he is shaping his Director role as the company accelerates its use of technology innovations in operations and service delivery. In this interview, Sameer unveiled his profound candid side when comes to both work and personal.
Tell us what motivates you to wake up in the morning.
What motivates me to wake up in the morning is the simple fact that unless one wakes up, all one can do is to dream. Dreams are essential, but waking up and taking actions to convert those to realities is the hallmark of progress and success. Every day has the potential to bring forth new challenges and opportunities. Playing with those is where the real fun sits, and one cannot do it unless one is awake – physically as well as mentally.
Between, sleep also means having nightmare at times, and waking up reassures that despite what one feels at those moments of fright. At the end, it is going to be just fine!
Describe your leadership style.
I like to think it is action oriented, straightforward and collaborative. I am demanding, I like to challenge what’s being brought to the table and I like to see statements backed by facts and data. What pleases me the most is when yesterday’s rookies start to make moves like a champion, and I’ll put conscious effort for enabling and empowering them to do so. I also put effort to adjust my style to suit best the situation and team, which happens at times but not always.
What business that has adopted new technology and evolved their business model do you admire most? Why? Â
I will refrain from naming any specific organisation but there is a handful today. Â Some examples adopting this fabulously right, while plenty do not exist anymore or they are hardly around as example of not executing it the right way.
There’s one brilliant organisation that changed their business proposition from being a ‘transmitter’ of money to providing full fledged payment solutions with the help of technical advancements. Today, they are the leader in the digital payment space.
Another one of today’s top technology companies of the world has used technology to marry advertisements with the internet searches. It changed not only the company’s fortune but also created an indelible impact on how we live today.
Lately, one of the most popular video sharing sites wasn’t even breaking before they adopted a business model aimed at partnering with premium content providers. This was a technology driven integration approach.
All of these, and a bagful of more like the above examples, used their core strengths to evolve a new business model and extensively used technology to achieve their goal and have changed the lives of every human being.
Assuming there is only one job (leave aside i-Admin for a second) that you could apply for at this stage of your career, where would you apply and why?
Well, I am past applying for jobs now 🙂
But the priority thing I would pick to answer this question would be anything that takes me back to cold mountains; in a place where everyone knows everyone and choices for everything are limited. I am yet to figure out what exactly this ‘job’ would be.
What are you really into outside of work?
Love spending time with my family. A lot of movies (whenever, wherever possible) and reading about geopolitical conflicts (no dearth of those in today’s time unfortunately).I am also a great fan of Dolce far Niente – sweetness of doing nothing. Try to practice it as much as I can, with limited success I must say.