Rajesh Sethi

In February 2008, I started my journey with Mondial Assistance — a startup where I was the first hire, I got to see the startup up close. (rebranded as Allianz Global Assistance in 2010)

We created Assistance services as a new category in India for speciality insurance products.

In the next 5 years, we created profitable and sustainable businesses across the geographies of India,Thailand,Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Ten Sports is a leading sports broadcaster, with operations spread across the globe and P&L of around $ 175 Million, however it was not a profitable venture.

It was a definite case of Large Scale Turnaround Opportunity.

2nd July’2013 , I joined Tensports.

Its been a ride — hard to explain in words — yet I will make attempts at doing that.

We set the business strategy and communicated a compelling vision behind which the whole organization rallied with a clear sense of mutual accountability.

Having re-built Tensports has called for many tough & unconventional decisions, venturing (and exiting) various unknown & unexplored markets, playing a variety of roles, and to get organisation at a point where the potential is truly massive — We turned organisation profitable.

Post Leaving a very settled & comfortable career with General Electric in 2008, I gained immensely in many ways:

1. Highly condensed learnings over the last 7 years — challenges, growth, situations, geographies, cross-cultural sensitivities and responsibilities that people generally take 2 to 3 decades to go through.

2. Confidence — of having built something like Allianz Global Assistance and then being successful in an entirely divergent field of turning around a global sports broadcaster — making me believe that everything is possible!

3. Pick your non-negotiables upfront and be very clear about them. Our Value System and Integrity defines us. Our values define for us that what’s correct and that we operate with the highest standards of professionalism.

4. I learned that I love the freedom, flexibility, and creativity of challenging environments.While the risk of failure is ever present, a start-up or a turnaround offers the prospect of excitement and challenge apart from a more flexible role.

5. I also learned that having enough money is important, but more money will never motivate me if I lack passion or belief in a company’s larger vision.