Author | People Management
Sekar Shanmugam specialises in BUSINESS ACUMEN programmes that use a sophisticated board-based business simulation tool developed by Profitability Business Simulations, UK. Sekar is a proponent of educating employees on how businesses work and make money so that they will be able to contribute effectively to the company’s business goals – a philosophy commonly known as ‘Open Book Management’. The BUSINESS ACUMEN programme lays the foundation that puts philosophy into practice.
Sekar brings many years of hands-on people management and real life business experiences to the training programmes. He started his career at Intel as a Systems Engineer and has spent the majority of his 24 year career working in leading companies like Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Maxis Berhad in senior leadership roles.
His experience includes, among others, managing business units with full P&L, sales and operational responsibilities, guiding his organization through the 1997 Asian financial crisis and leading the integration efforts in Malaysia during the merger of HP and Compaq in 2001. As Director of Service Delivery at HP Malaysia, he led an organisation of more than 200 people to win the Computer World Malaysia “Best Support & Services” inaugural award in 2001 and again in 2002 against other industry IT giants.
In 2007, Sekar moved from the technology sector to work for a Khazanah Nasional agri-business start-up. As Director of Sales & Marketing, he spotted a gap in the market and led the creation of a new brand of packed fresh vegetables – probably a first in South East Asia in the targeted market segment. In less than a year this new product category contributed 10% of total revenues and 30% of total margins.
Sekar joined Maxis in 2010 as General Manager of Corporate Business and the Public Sector . At Maxis, he led the initiative to create new future revenue streams in the form of enterprise mobility services – ie. helping organizations improve their productivity or even increase their sales through the use of mobile technologies. Sekar has two books about the early days of the Internet to his name and has published numerous articles on the topic of leadership and management. He holds a Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Malaya and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.
