From Markets to Movements: Re-Writing The COO Playbook The early lessons in hustle and human connection would eventually propel him from London's trading stalls to the boardrooms of Fortune 50 corporations, reshaping industries and influencing global leadership along the way.

From the bustling London markets to Fortune 50 boardrooms, Avtar Sehmbi's story is one of scale, resilience, and gravitas. Avtar Sehmbi's professional arc is the definition of unexpected, or is it? At just 11 years old, he was already selling goods alongside his father in the bustling London markets. Growing up in a small house shared with two other families, he learned early how to adapt quickly, connect with people, and see opportunity in places others overlooked. "Every situation hides an opportunity," he reflects. "The difference is whether you choose to see it."

Those early lessons in hustle and human connection would eventually propel him from London's trading stalls to the boardrooms of Fortune 50 corporations, reshaping industries and influencing global leadership along the way.

The Entrepreneur's DNA

In his twenties, Sehmbi scaled his family retails outlet into a distribution business that moved goods from Asia into Europe and North America. That first leap from seller to strategist proved formative, showing him the mechanics of scale and the discipline of risk.

Soon after, he co-founded a boutique trading venture focused on fixed-income securities. The idea grew directly from his earlier experience moving goods across regions, where he noticed how differences in currencies could be leveraged as opportunity. What began as trading products soon became trading value, with Sehmbi constantly traveling to navigate currencies, regulations, and sentiment shifts in real time. It was less about numbers on a screen and more about reading people, cultures, and markets, spotting opportunities where others only saw risk or volatility. "Numbers tell you what happened," Sehmbi says. "Sentiment tells you what's coming next."

Orchestrating Global Powerhouses

Sehmbi eventually carried his entrepreneurial instincts into the corporate world, where the stage was bigger, the stakes higher, and the challenges more complex. Over the next three decades, he orchestrated transformation across some of the most influential companies of the modern era, aligning technology, operations, and people at a scale few leaders ever touch.

At HSBC, he helped design global operating structures that spanned more than 60 countries, embedding new frameworks in areas from capital markets to trade finance. At Deloitte, he launched technology and risk functions in the UK and Switzerland. At Verizon, he helped fortify digital resilience for international markets and built forensic capabilities in line with regulatory mandates. At Centrica, he played a part in shaping the UK's Smart Metering initiative, blending regulation with technology.

His projects touched millions of customers, billions in assets, and hundreds of thousands of employees. Yet his philosophy never drifted far from those early lessons in the London markets. As he puts it, "Scale builds companies. Respect builds belief. And belief builds movements."

Navigating Regulation, Building Resilience

Sehmbi's ability to navigate complexity has made him a trusted partner to regulators across the globe. His work has spanned North America, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa, driving digital transformation, compliance, and resilience in some of the world's most demanding financial jurisdictions.

He has engaged with institutions ranging from the National Futures Association in the United States to the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg, all the way to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. For Sehmbi, "Regulation isn't a barrier. It is the backbone of trust. The leaders who master it unlock markets others cannot reach."

Beyond Profit

Sehmbi has also put his expertise to work on humanitarian and national priorities. He helped Save the Children distribute emergency cash through secure infrastructure. He worked with the U.S. Department of the Treasury on frameworks to protect institutions from organized crime. He contributed to the Bank of England's supervisory programs to safeguard critical infrastructure. He supported the UK's carbon-reduction mandate for 2035, showing that technology and regulation can align to meet societal goals. In his words, "Profit and purpose are not rivals. They are partners in progress."

Rewriting the Playbook of Global Leadership

Sehmbi is not just a practitioner of transformation. He is one of the voices redefining what leadership looks like in a digital-first world. His insights have been sought and published by leading platforms across finance, technology, and business, giving him a global stage to challenge old assumptions and set new standards.

As a member of the Forbes Technology Council and the Fast Company Executive Board, he has written about the rise of the "Cyber Savvy CEO", arguing that cyber resilience is now a board-level responsibility. "Cyber isn't IT's problem," he insists. "It is every CEO's responsibility."

He has also been spotlighted by the London Stock Exchange in The Digital Banker, where he emphasized how CTOs are increasingly positioned to lead the future of banking. "In today's world," he notes, "to lead technology is to lead the business."

In Forbes, he highlighted how India's Global Capability Centers have evolved into true innovation engines, setting the benchmark for resilience, AI adoption, and digital transformation. "India's GCCs are not the back office of the world," he says. "They are the brain trust of the future."

And in Gulf News, his feature "Building the Oracle" outlined how the Gulf is creating a new financial and technology ecosystem, a vision that was later recognized by Business Insider for its global relevance. As Sehmbi describes it a new bloc is emerging, linking India's engineering scale, Saudi Arabia's sovereign capital, the UAE's hyper-connected infrastructure, and North Africa's rising fintech ecosystems. Together, these markets are creating a cross-border operating system that is moving from pilots to platforms, and from experimentation to economic strategy.

For him, this is more than economics; it is about alignment of purpose. "When scale meets ambition, you do not just build markets, you build momentum," he says. These perspectives frame a new alliance of global growth: India as the scale of capability, and the Gulf as the platform of ambition and Africa as the future market.

The Age of Bridge-Builders

Sehmbi's journey has always been about vision. As a boy in the bustling London markets, he learned to see opportunity where others saw only obstacles. That same instinct now shapes his global outlook, where he sees the synergy of India's scale, the Gulf's ambition, and Africa's rising markets converging into a new operating system for growth. What began as a talent for spotting opportunities on a single street has become a philosophy for reshaping economies. In every stage of his life, Sehmbi has proven that those who can see opportunity are the ones who can turn markets into movements and rewrite the playbook of global leadership. His own journey, from the bustling London markets to the boardrooms of Fortune 50 corporations, mirrors the transformation he now champions: markets turning into movements, and leadership that places people at the center.

For Sehmbi, the message is clear. "The future belongs to leaders who can unite ecosystems across borders. That is how we turn scale into impact, and ambition into reality."