Category: Asia’s 10 Most Prominent business leaders of 2022_profile

Any conversation about South-East Asia is incomplete without talking about the blue-collar or gig workers. Every year thousands of workers and laborers migrate from countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Srilanka, Philippines to other countries in the Middle East and South- East Asia for a better livelihood. Once getting their job in those countries, these blue-collar workers send a part of their earnings in the form of cash or goods to support their families back home. These transfers are mostly known as migrant remittances, which are multiplying over the past few years, and now represent the largest source of foreign income for several developing countries.

However, it’s tough to estimate the amount of remittance flow each year, as most of them occur in unofficial channels. In most cases, unofficial channels don’t provide real-time funds transfers, and the amount gets settled periodically through a commercial bank. In several poor households, remittance may buy essential goods, healthcare, and education. In wealthier families, remittance may provide capital for starting a business. Sadly, most of these Blue Collar workers are either unserved or underserved by most of the legacy banks, which makes it impossible to improve their standard of living.

So, Arivuvel Ramu, a serial entrepreneur, founded Inypay, a Singapore-based fintech startup, to shake the digital transformation for the financial service industry by providing the best-in-class, API-driven, cost-effective, cloud-native, next-generation financial experience platform, and digital banking as a service platform over a Managed SaaS model.

Micro-lending, domestic payments, e-wallets, remittances, micro insurance, and customized group savings are the primary areas of concentration for Inypay. Presently the fintech startup employs over 30 employees in Singapore, Vietnam, and India and has plans to expand across five countries in South-East Asia.

The Steadfast Leader

Inypay’s CEO and Founder, Arivuvel Ramu, is a veteran industry leader with over two decades of tech industry expertise. He has led digital transformation programs for banks across South-East Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Arivuvel has spearheaded projects with DBS, UOB, Maybank, OCBC, Axis Bank, Citi India, Union Bank, China Bank, Bank Danamon, MAB, and NDB. He is also the mastermind behind Tonik Digital Bank, Philippines’ first neobank. During his time at Tonik, Arivuvel was responsible for concept and implementation, managing both the group and local banking entities and enabling Tonik’s growth to more than a billion USD.

Establishing the Company

Being a serial entrepreneur, Arivuvel recognized that none of the current solutions in the market cater to the needs of blue-collar workers, foreign domestic workers, and micro-SMEs in Southeast Asia.

“Inypay is Asia’s first next-gen financial experience platform (Neobank) which improves the underserved and unserved people in SEA and empowers women and micro SMEs.”

So, he decided to create a financial institution that could help improve the lives of the underserved and unbanked in South East Asia with a next-generation digital platform providing them with hyper-personalized financial experiences and digital-only products & services, which led to the inception of Inypay in December 2021.

Path Breaking Services

Under Arivuvel’s leadership, Inypay is entirely focused on three segments (Retail Mass affluent and emerging affluent, Blue-collars, and MicroSMEs). For Retail customers, the fintech company provides Digital Onboarding and eKYC automation, Micro Lending, Payments, Micro Insurance, Personalized savings and communal Savings, Cards, Wallets, and Realtime Remittance. For tourists, it provides Wallets and Cards, Seamless remittance/payments services. And for SMEs, Inypay provides Working Capital and Invoice financing services.Inypay’s lending process is driven through its state-of-the-art in-house intent-driven alternate credit scoring to tab the underserved/unserved markets with its unique decision engine algorithms.

Asian Business Environment

Arivuvel believes the Asian market desperately needs a reliable place to save and access their money, quickly send money to a loved one in their home country, get emergency cash in real-time, access reliable insurance and working capital, and invoice financing for Micro SMEs.

Looking at the Future

Inypay is now all set for the Inypay Singapore pilot launch in Q2 2023, Inypay Philippines pilot launch (Rural bank) in Q4 2023, and SME (invoice financing / digital onboarding) in Q2 2024.

“We are targeting to launch a neobank in Dec 2023. It will generate USD 200m revenue by 2026 with an 8m customer base and a USD 2b valuation,”– stated Arivuvel.

 

Anish Daryani established M&C Saatchi Indonesia in 2018 to Disrupt the communications industry in Indonesia. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, Anish went to St. James’ School. He later attended St. Xavier’s College, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Initially, Anish was chosen by a modeling agency that had come to his college campus looking for fresh talent, and after joining the agency, Anish landed a few modeling assignments.

However, he soon recognized an opportunity to start a business in the same space and launched his modeling agency named ‘Creations’ at 19.

After establishing ‘Creations,’ Anish also had his first brush with advertising professionals, where he became fascinated by how they worked with consumer insights. In a heartbeat, Anish realized this was what he was born to do and exited the business to get an internship in an agency.

Since then, advertising became the only profession Anish has been in. He says, “I do it all day, every day. A career in building brands has taken me places, literally… as I got to work and live in Mumbai, Nairobi, Lagos, Bengaluru, Ho Chi Minh City, and now Jakarta, where I’ve anchored my ship.”

Establishing M&C Saatchi Indonesia

As a veteran advertising professional, Anish had the privilege of building his professional career with several big network agencies, including Ogilvy, Rediffusion Y&R, Leo Burnett, and Lowe. This eventually gave him the chance to get a closer look at the industry and understand that it was slowly crumbling. Advertising is all about people and their talent. However, many traditional advertising agencies had forgotten that, and finance professionals started running the show, and soon people became numbers on an excel sheet. Upon realizing this, Anish decided to build a new-age, future-proof agency focusing on people and talent, both within the agency and its clients.

On establishing M&C Saatchi Indonesia, Anish positioned the agency as an “Accelerator of Commerce”. Its advertising services translate Brand Purpose to Commerce. Its digital services convert Content to Commerce. Its Shopper and Experiential services elevate Brand Experience to Commerce, and its PR Services transform Brand Reputation to Commerce.

Anish says, “Our’ agility” is the main ingredient behind our success… our ability to lead, create and manage meaningful change, and deliver solutions and ideas with our principle of “Brutal Simplicity of Thought.” We brought in the freshness that the market required. We don’t just identify the problems; we solve them. As a team, we harness our collective energy to give the best solutions to our clients. And lastly, we deliver exceptional results to our clients, which has led to a 90% client retention rate. Our agency model is of the future, and every strategy we follow is always in line with tomorrow.”

Mission and Vision M&C

Saatchi was established to simplify brand building during the age of change by navigating, leading, and creating meaningful change. The organization creates ‘Simple Solutions that Spark’ using meaningful data, actionable strategies, and simple experiences powered by significant changes.

Altogether these have led to the creation of solid agency culture, which Anish is very proud of.

• People Power: M&C Saatchi is entirely talent-led, and the agency is all about its people, those who work in the agency, and those who work with the agency (clients and partners).
• Diverse Collaboration: From having an agile workplace to simplicity in process, everything Anish and his team does is aimed at harnessing the power of collaboration among internal teams, external specialists, partners, and clients.
• Playful Curiosity: As the agency’s founder, Anish encourages his teams to enjoy their work, seek innovation, and empower them to take risks without fearing failure. M&C Saatchi Indonesia ensures complete job security so that no members could be sacked due to a lack of performance.
• Performance Driven: As an organization, M&C Saatchi Indonesia ensures all of its services are aimed at generating results for its clients and itself.

The Asian Business Environment

Anish believes Asia is the heart of business and innovation. With the emergence of several significant economies like India, China, and Indonesia, Asian businesses now propel the world forward. Today, any global business will fail to succeed if they fail to perform in any of these markets. Also, several smaller economies like Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines have so much growth potential that they can’t be ignored. While many larger economies are slowly stagnating, Asia still enjoys a healthy growth rate. Even with strong headwinds, the solid fundamentals and self–consumption story make Asia far more insulated from the adverse effects compared to other severely impacted regions.

Preparing for the Future

Anish says, “Since I decided to start this company, I had envisioned a certain place in the world for it. I want to build M&C Saatchi Indonesia as one of the most effective agencies in the world. When operating a business in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, you can access the talent, clients, and resources to achieve that. Making your teams accountable to your clients is the key. This is why we have focused all our energies towards creating a real impact on our clients’ businesses.”

As a young company, M&C Saatchi has won more awards and accolades than many businesses might have earned in decades. As the agency’s founder, Anish aspires to build one of the most reputable agencies, not just in SouthEast Asia or Indonesia but the world. In 2022, the agency was recognized by Campaign UK Magazine as the global Social Media Agency of the Year 2021. It is also the Campaign Southeast Asia Social Media Agency of the Year, Indonesia Creative Agency of the Year (Gold), Southeast Asia Agency for Best Culture (Bronze), and Indonesia Digital Agency of the Year (Gold) for 2021.

Under Anish’s leadership, M&C Saatchi also won Indonesia’s only Cannes Lion in 2020/21, which was also Indonesia’s first-ever Cannes Lion in the Sustainable Development Goals category.

Meet Sarmad Ali, the Managing Director of Jang Media Group, Pakistan’s most prominent and fastest-growing media group. With three newspapers, two weekly magazines, five TV channels, and several digital properties, Jang Media Group is the number one media group in the country. Its print flagship brand Daily Jang is the country’s largest newspaper with a 51% readership share while The News is one of Pakistan’s two premiers English dailies. On the other hand, Daily Awaz is the group’s low-price economy newspaper.

In the consumer magazine sector, Jang Group’s two magazines, Akhbar-e-Jahan and MAG, account for nearly 50% of Pakistan’s magazine readership.

Additionally, the group’s broadcast portfolio includes the country’s most popular satellite television network, GEO TV.

Presently GEO TV network is the largest network in Pakistan, comprising five channels; GEO Tez, GEO Entertainment, GEO News, GEO Kahani, and GEO Super.

The Steadfast Leader

Sarmad completed his early education in Pakistan, where he studied at the prestigious Forman Christian College in Lahore. Later, he pursued his Master’s Degree from Villanova University, Pa, USA. Sarmad started his career with the country’s leading advertising agencies, including IAL/Saatchi, where he worked as Director of Client Services from 1987 to 1993 and led the company’s affiliation initiative with Saatchi and Saatchi.

Later in 1994, Sarmad joined Jang Media Group as the Chief Operating Officer of their just launched English daily The News. At that time, Pakistan only had a few English dailies, which failed to resonate well with young readers. While most of the dailies focused on the political and business world, the readers wanted to explore other genres like sports and entertainment and The News catered to their needs. The News was Pakistan’s first national and all-color newspaper. Before its launch, English dailies had specific markets and were primarily published in black and white. When Sarmad joined the group, The News was struggling against the already established players that dominated one or the other metro markets.

Under Sarmad’s leadership, The News soon became one of Pakistan’s two premier English dailies.

In 1997, he took over as the group’s Executive Director of Marketing and Sales, and in 2006 was promoted to the position of Managing Director. Later in 2019, Sarmad was also given the responsibility to lead the Revenue function of the group’s television business, Geo News.

He is credited with revamping the newspaper industry in Pakistan by bringing innovation and new technology to the print media.

Additionally, Sarmad is the President of All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and has already served as its Secretary General. At APNS, Sarmad introduced the idea of celebrating national Newspaper Readership Day on the 25th of September every year to encourage youth to develop reading habits. Earlier in 2013 Sarmad had organized the first ever South Asian Media Summit at Islamabad.

He is also the President of the International Advertising Association’s Pakistan chapter and serves on its World Board of Directors. In 2019, Sarmad served as the Chairman of AdAsia 2019 and led the team that conceptualized and executed the prestigious Asian Advertising Congress in Lahore.

Described as of one of Pakistan’s marketing thought leaders, Sarmad has been thrice the President of the Marketing Association of Pakistan. In 1999, he was awarded the coveted Marketing Excellence Award for his contribution in the field of marketing. Ranked amongst Pakistan’s Top 100 Business Leaders, Sarmad received the Asian Brand Leadership Award from the Asian Brand Congress in 2007 and the 50 Most Talented CMOs Award at the World Marketing Summit in 2013. In 2019 the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA) bestowed upon him the Special Merit Award in recognition of his services for the advertising industry in the region. In 2021 the Pakistan Advertisers Society presented him with its most prestigious and iconic Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2013, the President of Pakistan had conferred upon Sarmad, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s third highest Civil Award for his contributions towards the newspaper industry.

The Asian Business Environment

“It would not be an exaggeration to say that the business environment in Asia is booming. China has been continuously extending its freight rail services to European and Asian markets and trying to reduce freight times on sea significantly. The rapid expansion of freight routes indicates the development of trade between China and other countries. However, it does not only benefit China but the entire region. Case in point China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a project under the Belt & Road Initiative that has opened doors of opportunities for Pakistan.”– states Sarmad.

He also explains that the projects under CPEC, like infrastructure, energy, or transport, have been a constant source of development in the region. It has provided several job opportunities for the local people and has paved the way for many foreign investments and international business cooperation.

Sarmad feels that Asian countries opening borders for each other, supporting in areas of weakness, and offering each other their strengths have put the continent on the map of economic development and have given the status of emerging economies. With countries like China, India, Japan, and Singapore, Asian business environment will continue to drive economic growth in the future.

Picture of the Future

As a multimedia company, Jang Group is already leading in Pakistan’s print, electronic, and digital media space and has earned the status of being an innovator and trendsetter in Pakistan’s media ecosystem. The group aspires to continue its position by strengthening its print, TV, and digital properties. Jang has been organizing Pakistan’s largest education expo for the last decade as a media group. However, the pandemic stopped all the activities, so it moved to organize a virtual expo, which garnered immense appreciation from participants and clients. Now with the declining Covid infections, the offline event has started once again, but Jang Group plans to keep it both virtual and physical to reach a wider set of audience.

Sarmad says, “We have also implemented augmented reality in our newspaper for news headlines. We plan to take it a step further and start augmenting and monetizing our advertisements as well. This will give our clients and us an edge over other newspapers and will help in our revenue generation as well.”

Sarmad and his team have also created a virtual gallery celebrating Pakistan’s 75 years of independence. Since the group’s flagship newspaper, Jang is older than Pakistan; it has a vibrant archive of Pakistan’s history. So, the group plans to launch it in October this year on Jang’s 75th anniversary in Pakistan.

“We will publish the QR code in our newspaper so that our readers can scan and enter a gallery of 75 years of important events in Pakistan through Jang headlines. The gallery will be supported by audio as well as video. So, it’s like walking through news and important events from the pages of our history and listening or watching its details as you move along from one decade in the gallery to another.”– explained Sarmad.

As the leader of the media group, Sarmad understands the importance of digital media in the current day and age and is working to integrate Group’s media platforms to provide audiences with a holistic and seamless experience.