The Conglomerate Captain: Arun Rathod The year 2013 is momentous for Rathod as it was during that period that he saw an opportunity to expand and export products, and started working on getting acceptance & approvals of the products with the Oil & Gas majors and other end users across the globe. Today, the group exports products across 52 countries globally.

From joining one of the group companies where he was overseeing various processes across departments (back in 2003) to taking its charge as Director, Operations (in 2007) and then stepping up as a CEO of the entire group a few years later, Arun Rathod's journey is indeed remarkable. The year 2013 is momentous for Rathod as it was during that period that he saw an opportunity to expand and export products, and started working on getting acceptance & approvals of the products with the Oil & Gas majors and other end users across the globe. Today, the group exports products across 52 countries globally.

One can call Rathod's leadership style a consolidated one. "One of the realizations is that the team is important and we can't achieve larger goals by ourselves, whether it is a joint venture, international expansions or adding new product lines. Developing leaders is one of my primary responsibilities and to empower the team to make decisions and also support them during their failure and correct it," shares Arun Rathod, Chief Executive Officer, Flosil Group of Companies.

The conglomerate has a diverse portfolio including interests in Oil & Gas, Defence Technology, Infrastructure, Education, FMCG, Renewable energy, Investments and manufacturing of products like Industrial Gaskets, Fasteners, Paints. It is also a champion of providing equal opportunities and boasts of a considerable women workforce.

Rathod is bullish about manufacturing across the globe. While many other companies looked at local value addition norms, in countries like Saudi, UAE & Malaysia as a challenge, Rathod looked at it as an opportunity and started manufacturing operations in these countries. He is contemplating replicating these models across many locations globally.

Innovation is taken very seriously by Rathod and his team. "The products that we are developing now are very futuristic. The team is embracing IOT and developing products which can predict the failure and the customers could get an alert on such information on their mobile phones," Rathod adds.

Talking about self-growth and development, Rathod shares that a personal coach helps him deal with conflicts and complex situations. Furthermore, he's always keen to learn and has done multiple courses from Columbia & Stanford Universities. Currently, he's committed to studying law, "The mindset of learning and adapting to changes is very important".

Fact File

• Year of joining the current organization: 2003

• Total team size: 300

• Turnover of the organization: 300 cr