CEO - Sachal Energy Development (Pvt) Ltd.

EVOLVE: Please share a rundown of your professional background with us?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: I started my career in the army where I completed my training with the distinction of winning the “Sword of Honor” along with five gold medals, which is a record. After serving in the army for a few years I left it to pursue a very different career in the corporate world. I completed my studies and became a Management Accountant. I did not stop there and went to Harvard Business School, so today apart from being a Fellow Management Accountant I am also a Harvard Alumni. It has been an honor that I served as the Executive Committee member of the Harvard Club of Pakistan twice and the President of ICMAP also. As I traveled along the career path, I tried to gain as diverse experience as I could. I have worked for local and international organizations and lead teams across various countries and territories. In the initial part of my career when I was young and liked to travel, I have found a lot of opportunities to travel across the globe as part of my various assignments. This has greatly enhanced my experience and exposure. Prior to starting my journey as an Entrepreneur, developing the current Wind Project, I was the Chief Operating Officer of (AWT) Askari group. My current role as the CEO of the wind IPP has been a major entrepreneurial venture that I launched and successfully developed. Our project is the First Pakistani owned CPEC project that has achieved commercial operations. The project is in Jhimpir, Sindh and is now producing Wind Power for Pakistan and contributing its share in the economic development of Pakistan. On a personal level my main interests include reading and writing. I have read many papers at national and international conferences. I feel most satisfied about the humble work that I am doing to help the special children. I am supporting the fund raising and contributing my humble bit in the construction of a residential school for special children. Another area of my involvement is education where we are providing scholarships to the needy students of the professional universities.

EVOLVE: What is the secret of your organization’s continuous and consistent growth in Pakistan?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: The main secret behind our organization’s successful development and implementation of the wind power project is perseverance and commitment to highest professional standards. In this regard, comparing our organization with other organizations we should keep in mind the fundamental differences between developing a green field project and running an existing business. In our case, we faced a lot of challenges which are quite different from routine businesses. We found out in this process that commitment to the highest professional standards not only helps you deliver quality but also it improves the odds of winning over various obstacles that come along the way. Passion is another important element in developing any new venture because without passion you cannot give your best. So, what we have done over the period of last many years is that we kept our teams very small but staffed them with the right people having the right attitude and a passion for developing a new project. As a team we always committed to the highest professional and ethical standards and we never stopped from endeavoring against multiple odds in achieving what we wanted to achieve.

EVOLVE: What is the biggest obstacle you have come across in your professional roller coaster ride?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: As you have seen, my career has really been a roller coaster ride in which I have gone through a multitude of diverse sectoral experiences. So with this variety of experience, once I look back, the biggest obstacle which I feel is the resistance to change and the willingness to think and appreciate original ideas. I found out that generally people do not want to try something that is out of the box, rather we limit ourselves by the extent or the boundary of our own thoughts. We do not want to try new things. We are not ready to venture out of our comfort zone.

EVOLVE: What are your views on leadership? Can leaders be trained?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: I think leadership is first and foremost about the character and the vision of the person. Vision is the differentiating point between the leader and the lead. The world has changed in almost every aspect in the last few decades and this change is brought about by the visionary leaders who have the capability to dream something new, of something better, of something worthy. These people have the character to stand tall in front of all the hindrances that came their way. With steadfastness, unflinching resolve and perseverance they were able to materialize their dreams and visions into reality. Now about the second part: whether the leaders are born or made? I think this is a debate which has gone on for quite some time now. I think we cannot absolutely compartmentalize that the leaders are only born and cannot be trained or whether the leaders can be trained and do not require any natural talent. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle between these two extremes and may be not exactly in the middle but a bit skewed towards the training part of it. As anything which we do in life we require some core talent or aptitude and then this aptitude must be nurtured, trained, and groomed to become proficiency. In the same manner, for anyone to be a leader we require few innate talents which we think are available in most of the people and then obviously those innate talents must be trained, groomed and honed to bring out the true colors of leadership in someone.

EVOLVE: What are the core competencies of leadership that you believe are essential for our young business leaders?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: The core competencies of leadership that we would like to see in our new business leaders would include; first and the foremost: the ability to dream and to look beyond the horizons. Then the new business leaders must have a very strong value system ingrained in their personality; including the values of integrity, transparency and perseverance. If I may not extend this list a bit longer then another important thing would be the courage and the character which would enable the new business leaders to remain steadfast in the face of all the odds.

EVOLVE: Keeping in view the challenges for the business leaders in Pakistan, how would you rate business leaders here?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: Business leaders in Pakistan face many challenges which range from the energy crises to the lack of enabling policy framework. Although here I would like to clarify that when it comes to policies, Pakistan is comparatively better than many countries but once it comes to a proper and smooth implementation of these policies, Pakistan lags far behind. So, business leaders face numerous problems including corruption, abuse of bureaucracy, lack of proper infrastructure and that includes energy. Experience tells us that Pakistani business leaders are far more spirited than anyone in the world because not only they face structural policy problems, but they have been braving the problems related to law and order situations including terrorism. However, in the face of all these odds their performance had been commendable.

EVOLVE: We are faced with a dilemma in professional ethics, how can we inculcate a sense of ethics in our managers?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: I think this is a very pertinent question in today’s business environment; we are very often faced with a dilemma in professional ethics. I think this can be managed at a personal and organizational level by inculcating and strengthening a set of core values which should run deep into the human resource of the organization and in the culture of the organization itself. Inculcating the sense of ethics in our managers requires few things which include: first defining the core values through a participatory process and then regularly training the managers and all the human resources of the organization on these core values. While hiring new talent we should be mindful that we hire those who can align themselves with these core values.

EVOLVE: What are a few resources you would recommend someone to gain insight on becoming a better leader?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: I think the biggest resource is one’s own passion and one’s own willingness to think out of the box and readiness to lead by example. But apart from this there is a lot of literature available which talks about the ability to grow oneself as a good leader and in that I think the first and the foremost resource would be that we should try to learn and read about the good leaders which have gone past, may those be from politics or business or military. As a resource the first thing is reading the biographies of good leaders because that creates the linkage of various ideas, values and qualities with the real-world examples. Apart from that as I have also studied at Harvard Business School so generally one tends to look back and recommend the books written by various professors from HBS. However, I would like to name a few like the “Art of War” by Sun Tzu “True North” by Bill George, various books by Stephen Covey and “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.

EVOLVE: What is the importance of values in sustaining a company? Do values repel change?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: I think values are the foremost thing, they are the core of all the decisions and the strategies. Because values define us as human beings and they also define us as corporations, without values there is no distinction between the right and wrong and good and a bad decision or structure. I think commitment to values is the most essential part in a corporate’s life as whenever there is a crisis, whenever there is a challenge, it is always values which help individuals and corporations to navigate through those tough times in a proper manner. I do not believe that values repel change because in my view values do not change and on the other hand the way we work, the way we plan our business and the way the competition behaves, these things keep on changing and every company must keep pace with such things, but values only help us in bringing about change in the right manner and keeping the change process on right track. So, values do not repel change.

EVOLVE: What kind of culture have you maintained at Sachal Energy and how would you throw light in its significance?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: Culture is a very important and defining aspect of any company and in Sachal Energy we have a culture of openness, transparency and mutual respect. These may be called core things, and these are overlapped by professional excellence and attention to detail. I think culture permeates all the aspects of corporate life and this is the lens or the filter through which all the actions and interactions of the company and its staff are seen. We must be very careful while managing any company because the cultures are deep rooted and once they take form, it’s very difficult to get rid of them. And the cultures ultimately result in habits and if we have a culture which results in positive habits, then obviously it’s good for any company and for Sachal I can say that with a lot of confidence and pride, that we have developed a culture which results in positivity, harmony and open communication.

EVOLVE: How do you communicate a lucid company’s vision to each employee?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: Company’s vision is a very important thing. It is just like the north of any compass which is very vital in pointing out the right direction if we are going from one place to the other and that’s why once we communicate our vision to every employee, we always focus that it is not merely a statement which embodies our corporate aspirations rather it is much more than that. It must become the core of all our dealings and it must become the cornerstone of the way any employee develops himself/herself in the company and contributes to the team.

EVOLVE: Why did you choose alternate energy for your current venture?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: At this juncture in my career I had to make a choice keeping in view where my time and energy will be best utilized. I chose the energy sector and especially alternative energy for a simple reason that in view of the Pakistan energy crisis and its impact on the socio-economic development of Pakistan, this is high time that we develop some quality projects in this area for our country. Alternative energy is the future and it becomes even more important for countries like Pakistan. As a country we have immense potential in alternative energy. We just need to harness this potential in the right manner.

EVOLVE: How do you look at the energy crisis management efforts’ result in Pakistan? Shall we get rid of this menace?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: I think the energy crisis has plagued Pakistan and its economy for a long time now and this has resulted in subpar economic development, poor human development and limited growth. I think that with the efforts of the government on the generation side, Pakistan has moved a long way and now we are generating quite a substantial amount of power but the biggest challenge now which lies ahead, is improvement and upgradation of the transmission and distribution systems in Pakistan. Because unless we have a transmission and distribution system at par with the generation capacity, we will not be able to properly come out of the power crisis. Second, as under the CPEC, the rapid industrialization is going to happen in near the future so the power consumption will also enhance and another impact of the power consumption would be an improvement in the lifestyle of the population because of the improved economic activity; so because of these two major reasons we are looking forward in the enhancement of the power demand and we feel that the way government has jacked up the power production capacity till now, if we go ahead in the same manner and improve the transmission and distribution network, we will be able to come out of this power problem for good.

EVOLVE: What is the recipe to achieve long-term success?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: The recipe to achieve long term success includes working with passion, having a dream and then the courage to pursue the dream relentlessly. Perseverance is one of the neglected qualities that is very important for long term success. Other things include developing a successful and credible brand, may that be a corporate brand or a personal brand. Along with these we need professionalism, being true to one’s values and credibility are some of the major ingredients for long term success. While looking at long term success we must understand various facets of success and how to measure them correctly. So apart from personal qualities; the drive and passion, you must be careful about the product. For long term success our products or offerings must be deeply ingrained with our values, professionalism and attention to detail.

EVOLVE: Where do you see yourself and your organization in the next 5-10 years?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: As an entrepreneur when I look towards the future, I believe that in next five to ten years’ time I would have launched and successfully executed a few other projects; some of them would be in energy and transmission and power distribution but I am quite hopeful that some of my new ventures would be in areas totally different from power and energy. Further I plan to help more and more young entrepreneurs in developing successful businesses. As far as my current organization is concerned, I believe in the next five to ten years we will become a group of interconnected renewable projects that will include power generation from wind and solar energy both.

EVOLVE: Any message for the readers of EVOLVE magazine?

Mr. Kashif Mateen Ansari: To the readers of Evolve my message is that Pakistan is a great country with immense potential and a very resilient corporate sector. As people we are very hospitable and friendly, and I would like to call upon all the readers of Evolve to work together to make this country more successful and to our foreign readers my message is that, we welcome you to Pakistan to conduct business and enhance our mutual relationship and friendship in the future.