2112 – Mastering Disruption in Leadership with GHD Digital’s Kumar Parakala

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1:05With us right now, it's Kumar Parakala. Kumar, you are a serial entrepreneur and you are the author of the book, the bestselling book, Lead to Disrupt, Seven Keys to Success in the Changing World. Well, Kumar, there's a lot of changes in the world taking place right now. So it's a great time and it's great to have you early in the year here. Kumar, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Josh. It's a great pleasure. Yeah, I should also point out that you obviously do some speaking as well. But would you mind maybe sharing a little bit about your background, the work that you do? Yes, Josh. Over the last roughly 20-25 years, I've been working with large companies as well as I have my own startup.

1:52And the whole focus is to build global businesses from almost nothing to significant businesses. So I work with firms like KPMG and right now I'm working with a company called GHD and been a founder of GHD Digital. And we grew that business to$100 million in five years as completely being entrepreneurial in a complex, global, highly successful organization. and my role is to do things that are otherwise very difficult in a traditional business model. So my journey has been very productive. I've learned a lot of things and it's been one of great adventure and excitement. Do you mind maybe just sharing as kind of a template for what we're about to talk about with the book Lead to Disrupt?

2:54Do you mind maybe sharing a little bit about the opportunity that GHD had and what you were able to do over the past since you came in? And Kyle, what's the GHD story that's relevant to Lead to Disrupt? Yes, that's a great question. GHD is an almost 100-year-old company delivering professional services in a global environment, significant presence in Americas and Asia Pacific. It's an Australian origin company. I'm a proud Australian as well. And it's an employee-owned company as well. And when I joined GHD in 2017, they acquired my startup with the main objective of, you know, driving new areas of growth and digitally transforming the business internally and externally.

4:02So my job was to set up a business that will be seen as an industry leader, that will help clients with the digital transformation paradigm, and something that will also transform GHD, which is a successful 100-year-old firm, in the process. Fast forward, we signed off on the strategy in 2017. We went global in 2019. Fast forward five years, we achieved all those goals. We are 100 million revenue. We are nine countries. We've got about 600 people. And this February, we were rated number one in the AC industry. AC stands for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industry, which is a$200 billion industry.

4:58So the entrepreneurial journey was very productive and beneficial with GHD due to two or three reasons. One, I had great support from the GHD's board and executive leaders, part of the executive team. Two, I have incredibly great, you know, leadership team. I have hired people from all around the world and they've driven the agenda for us for the last five, six years. And three, our clients respect and value what we deliver to them. So there are a number of factors that have contributed to the so-called disruptive venture of setting up digital business in a hundred-year-old business has been what it has been.

5:54Yeah. Well, okay. What a great time to be talking about disruption. I think it's always en vogue to talk about disruption. But come on, right now, I mean, I feel like we're facing disruption at a level, again, I'm sure I'm committing so many logical fallacies right now by assuming that we are now truly living in the most disruptive time ever. But it feels like it to me. Do you mind maybe just sharing a little bit about the State of the Union, and then let's get into the book a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. I think the world is changing rapidly. And someone was saying to me, okay, 1970s, we were saying the same thing.

6:44The world is changing too fast. And now in 2025, you're saying the same thing. I said, yes, we're saying the same thing, but the pace at which the world is changing has significantly increased. due to a variety of factors. I'm a technology entrepreneur, so the first and foremost why the world is changing faster than what we have seen to date is artificial intelligence and automation is taking over the world by storm. And we have seen this happen in the last two years since we had the release of ChatGPT. we continue to have escalating geopolitical tensions Josh we have not only the Ukraine Russia war but you have the politics in Europe and then the Middle East and then the Israel and the Gaza and all that so so geopolitical tensions are polarizing people all around the world and leaders all around the world we are permanently moved to remote work you know even though some companies are asking their staff to come back.

7:58The dynamics of how we work has changed. Climate change, sustainability continuing to be a high priority for many organizations. We're all in the platform economy, the businesses that we are like Amazon and Facebook and others, they're all platform, they're driving the platform economy. And things like the mental well-being. People are increasingly finding the need to maintain their mental well-being. And last but not least, there is significant misinformation through social media, other channels that we have seen, and cybersecurity, privacy issues continue. So these are all the reasons why I very strongly believe that these forces are actually acting upon us as individuals on a daily basis, and they are creating a situation of disruption.

9:01I call these unpredictable disruptive forces that are profoundly reshaping our lives and business, Josh. So lead to disrupt. Let's talk about the trend. Like, why read this now? And what would you expect the transformation that would take place from the reader of this book, Lead to Disrupt? By the way, it's on Amazon. You can go to kumarparakala.com, click on books, you can get access to this. But tell us just a bit about what takes place during this book reading. Yeah, thank you for that, Josh. So I've started writing the book during COVID lockdown period. And I've been in leadership roles for almost two decades by then.

9:53And I suddenly realized that the whole paradigm of what leadership should be is changing. The needs of leadership are different. The many of the leadership philosophies that we are, you know, we have been following, we've been conditioned, we go to business schools to learn about these paradigms, you know, these theories and philosophies, they're all becoming outdated. So there is a need for new leadership models because the current leadership models are inadequate. And, you know, and that is because leadership is all about influencing people. People follow you. It's not management. Leadership is all about people getting motivated by what you say and you being able to influence them and productively working together to get an outcome that is beneficial for all the stakeholders.

10:56So in this situation, I realized that the inadequacies of the current leadership models, not knowing how to lead in a very rapidly evolving situation such as COVID and the demands that were put on me as a leader running the business prompted me to say, hey, what is that that is needed in this situation and going forward? And we thought, okay, once the COVID is over, the destructive forces will stop working. No. Once the COVID was over, we had a stock market crash. And then we had these geopolitical tensions and wars. And then we had misinformation, political vendettas. So it just never stops. This thing never stops.

11:49And as a business leader, as a global business leader, as an entrepreneur, I'm constantly being bombarded by these forces in a continuous manner with no breaks. I go from one challenge to another challenge. So I basically said, okay, how do I really, what is my leadership? How do I really influence and keep people motivated? How do I still deliver exceptional results? And the answer was, you know, we've got to do something very different to what we have believed and what all these leadership gurus have been teaching us for the last 50 years. We need to do something different. And that led to this book called Lead to Disrupt.

12:36A leader needs to have a disruptive mindset to drive progress wherever they are.

12:50yeah uh so in lest someone look kumar uh at what you've written and say i'm not a leader do you mind maybe just talking about the opportunity that uh likely i suspect you believe exists for all of us? Yeah. So for me, anyone who influences other people

13:21is a leader. You can have leaders in schools. You can have leaders when you're in grade one or grade two to being leaders when you are in a social situation. So leadership is not just limited to people with titles. In fact, Josh, many times I believe that people with great titles, and I had an opportunity to have many of these titles in my career, including the CEO, president, you know, many of the people with titles are not real leaders. They're managers. And they're managing, they manage their performance very well, they get rewarded, benefited. Leadership is something different. So for me, every individual can be a leader.

14:06And this particular book that I've written is focused on first and foremost on entrepreneurs, you know, entrepreneurs are leading change and innovation and, you know, creating great things. So entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, corporate leaders are the biggest employers of workforce today. Millions, I mean, I was just reading, you know, 1.5 million people are employed by big four firms, you know, KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and others, professional services firm. Now, the leaders of those firms are influencing almost 1.5 million people. So corporate leaders have a very important role in the leadership, in the professional leadership.

14:53Team leaders, not-to-profit leaders, government leaders. So this book is universally applicable for anyone who wants to further their thinking in the leadership space, but also are influencing people. And there's hardly any work environment where you don't influence other people. You work with people, you motivate them, you inspire them. So this book is all about, you know, those sorts of things. Yeah. So your website, kumarparakala.com, to our friend that's been listening, let's give them some things to do, shall we? And by the way, Kumar, I need to point out on your website, you've got podcast episodes, you've got resources.

15:42Do you mind maybe just sharing about maybe someone that might be looking to engage you? Or just, you know, again, how can Kumar help them in their life? Yeah, I think the best way to reach out to me is through LinkedIn, through the message. And I do get a lot of inquiries. And on my website, you know, I've got some of the podcasts I've done. I've been running a podcast called Transform Tomorrow's Thinking Today. It's very much technology focused and it's a part of GHD. you know, broadcast series. But very importantly, I think there's a huge potential for collaboration. And many of the leaders who have read my books, and some of them are very, very accomplished leaders in their own right, from political to business circles.

16:38And they've all endorsed my book. It's become a USA national bestseller, Amazon bestseller, many categories. I think the message I'm giving resonates with them. And I'm being very real and authentic. I'm not claiming to have all the answers. But I'm saying, hey, I know one thing for sure. If you've lived in a company for 30 years, if you're continuing to do what you're doing, you need to really have a good look at yourself and say, hey, what does the world need? What does the people whom I'm influencing needs? And how can I bring that change within myself and influence people positive? So that's in large organizations or small organizations.

17:24Entrepreneurs, again, the world of entrepreneurism is changing very fast. So how do you adapt to this change? At one point in time, anything technology was big in Silicon Valley. But today, everybody is jumping on the AI bandwagon. And, you know, so how do you pivot? And, you know, so the book is applicable to entrepreneurs and others as well. So happy to engage with people. They can always talk to me and, you know, through LinkedIn out there. Yeah. Well, congratulations on your successful exit with Technova. Congratulations on your tenure at GHD. And congratulations on the book, Lead to Disrupt.

18:08Again, it's on Amazon. It is a 4.9 on Amazon and Goodreads with lots of ratings. Again, lead to disrupt seven keys to success in the changing world. Kumar, your website, kumarparakala.com. It's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh. It's been a pleasure.

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