Leader in the Limelight
Leader in the Limelight is a series of Q&A sessions that we’ll be running over the next few months. Each session features a leader who is asked a series of questions revolving around their core area of work, their motivation, and their future plans, among other details.
For our second session, we’ve had the honor of talking to our Director of Operations, Dr. Ginish George, and seeking his input on specific questions.
The Q&A session was conducted by Mamata Saha, our content manager - marketing.
Session 2: Leader in the Limelight
- Tell us a little bit about your association with Relecura and how your journey with the organization has been so far.
Today, I complete eight years with Relecura. I consider this to be a substantial period since the maximum amount of time I’ve spent in an organization is five years!
I joined Relecura with 10 years of experience from a range of other industries. My initial role at Relecura involved tasks such as data acquisition, data quality assurance, and data cleansing, for the most part. Later, my role evolved more to include customer interactions, pre-sales demos and testing of new features. In other words, for the first four to five years of my stint here, I wasn’t assigned a managerial role.
I learnt many key lessons from leaders at Relecura, one of which I’d like to share. I realized that regardless of the deliverables assigned to us, they need to be complete and ready for our customers. We should never compromise on the quality of the work we do for our customers.
Over time, I started taking up additional responsibilities. I believe opportunities will remain limited if you don’t take up additional tasks. I’ve always had my learning options open, and this was something the leadership appreciated, which led to higher positions and more critical tasks. For instance, I got the opportunity to work several different teams like Sales & Marketing, IP services, and Engineering. You could say that I had my finger in many pies. My role broadened to include multiple departments, particularly in the last three years of my association with Relecura
In summary, the transition from my background to my current role was challenging, but I took away a wealth of learning, thanks to the help I received from George and other team members.
- What are the aspects of your role that you enjoy the most and those that you don’t?
I find unlimited learning opportunities at every step of the way in this organization. Relecura provides you with the freedom to be involved in multiple things. Let me share an example with you. Let’s say that the Engineering team is involved in several projects. Should you want to be involved in one or more projects, you’ll have the freedom and flexibility to be a part of the process, end-to-end, and even get to share your suggestions and inputs.
I’ve never been to a B-school or learnt how to manage people. Nonetheless, it’s these little tasks that increase your comfort level and confidence, and direct you toward bigger things. You develop the conviction that you’ll be able to take up anything the organization throws at you.
On the flip side, I’m not sure whether there’s anything I lack in terms of my managerial skills or how I’m performing. But if there is something that needs improvement, I'll be more than happy to work on them, provided I receive adequate feedback from the leadership team.
- What do you think is Relecura’s strong suit and why?
In my opinion, Relecura’s leadership is its strongest suit. The company leadership, comprising members like George and Hariharan, is made up of think tanks and people with a deep problem-solving background. In other words, they can approach any problem in the industry practically and come up with a workable solution.
Second, we’re a leader in the IP and innovation industry. For instance, if we consider any product, we’re always the first ones to launch it. Many times, our competitors create products similar to ours and even use the same product name! Relecura always seeks to stay a step ahead of the competition. In fact, we’re now researching and exploring more advanced AI and ML solutions. We also consider the latest algorithms in the AI and ML space. At the same time, if we look at our competitors, we can find them using mostly old-school databases and approaches, and as a result, they have remained stagnant.
Finally, we offer products that are unique. Taxonomy, launched six years ago, is the perfect example of an extraordinary tool that classifies hordes of technologies and sub-technologies, and even identifies white spaces for organizations to make informed R&D decisions. No other company, in the same space, has been able to replicate the product, especially in terms of its depth and breadth. Our USP lies in using the latest AI and ML algorithms to create tools that can tackle any and all innovation-related problems. In a word, our solutions can be used in various areas such as scientific literature, news articles, and even unpublished documents. Our tools are ahead of their times and are comprehensive enough to go beyond IP.
- What are your thoughts on the culture of the organization and the contribution of its employees?
We’re a small organization with a limited workforce, and follow a startup culture. In the past, we’ve all worked for massive corporations where we interacted with people at a micro level. However, at Relecura, we tend to interact with everyone from the top to the bottom levels of the hierarchy. Let’s assume that the Engineering team is working on a testing project. People from several different teams get together, discuss the concerns, brainstorm ideas, and work on solving the issues together. Such interactions offer a perfect opportunity for people to connect and bond.
At our weekly team meetings, George shares all his work updates first, though it’s not something he needs to share, being the CEO of the company. In other words, there are no inhibitions or barriers among team members. Everyone is approachable, regardless of the positions they hold.
Relecura makes it a point to celebrate the professional and personal milestones of employees on social media. The culture of the organization can be summed up in three words: transparent, open, and casual. Our company culture doesn’t promote micromanagement because our employees are responsible enough to complete their deliverables within set timelines. In the end, mutual trust is what holds us together and keeps us moving forward.
- How do you unwind when you’re not working? What are your interests?
In my spare time, I like spending time with my twin boys. They’re 10 and at an age where they’re inquisitive about everything and always ask me questions about different aspects of my life. Essentially, they’re interested in comparing my childhood moments with theirs, and drawing similarities and differences between them. We also watch a lot of TV shows together, including sports events.
I have a keen interest in cars and love going on long drives. I’m also a part of various automobile forums because they allow me the opportunity to know more about different cars, trends in the automobile industry, and developments. I like watching various travelogs on Youtube, where wanderlusts detail their transcountry trips. Finally, as part of my bucket list, I aspire to travel across the length and breadth of India, and explore the sights, sounds, people, culture, food, and languages over time.
