Beyond the Case

Sohin Shah

5.0 (5)
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

A podcast where global leaders from the Harvard Business School Owner/President Management (OPM) community join in a personal capacity and share the real decisions, failures, and mental models behind building enduring companies. This podcast is independent and not affiliated with Harvard Business School.

9H AGO

Scaling Trust in a Volatile, Unorganized Market - Akshay Verma

Send us a text How do you go about scaling in an unorganized industry that’s mid-disruption—while commodity prices swing wildly and brand “differences” can feel paper-thin? You stop trying to sell a product and start engineering trust, systems, and culture that compound over decades. Akshay Verma is a third-generation leader of Verma Jewelers in Himachal Pradesh, India, about modernizing a legacy business in a traditionally unorganized jewelry market. As competition intensifies with corporate chain entrants, he shares the core challenge for family jewelers: shifting mindset from owner-operator to organized enterprise by building processes, teams, and a replicable customer experience. He also addresses gold-price volatility as both threat and opportunity for driving innovation in product mix and a push toward tech-enabled retail. On e-commerce, he argues it can’t be half-hearted: it must start with clear customer understanding and likely works best as digital + physical, especially for everyday wear versus wedding buying. On disruptions like lab-grown diamonds, Akshay takes a segmented view: separate audiences, separate positioning - natural diamonds retain their “original” status, while lab-grown serves affordability-driven demand. Finally, he credits personal transformation and executive education especially Harvard Business School’s OPM and mentorship from Rahul Jain for expanding his ambition, delegation capacity, and long-term vision. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: In commodities, trust is the real product. The differentiation comes from reputation, honesty on purity/quality, and being part of life’s milestone moments - not just selling metal.The hard part of scaling a family business is mindset, not money. Moving from “I handle everything” to “systems + people + delegation” is the real transformation.Culture must be operationalized, not framed. Core values (ownership, accountability, discipline, punctuality, customer-first) become scalable only when trained, measured, and enforced.Go to the customer before you build everywhere. The mobile exhibition model is a clever way to expand reach across small towns without committing massive capital to permanent storefronts.Volatility forces innovation, if you let it. Gold-price swings push experimentation in product mix (e.g., lower-carat daily wear) and better tech/processes.E-commerce isn’t optional, but “half-in” fails. Digital works when you deeply understand customer behavior and start with the right categories, while keeping physical for high-touch occasions.Hybrid retail is the likely end-state. Jewelry buying often needs feel/fit/experience so digital should amplify discovery and convenience, not replace the showroom entirely.Disruptions like lab-grown need segmentation, not denial. Treat it as a different customer and value proposition don’t confuse “premium legacy” positioning with “accessible alternative.”Brand storytelling can be localized and still premium. Campaigns that turn real customers into the face of the brand and celebrate local culture create identity, pride, and viral familiarity.Personal discipline becomes leadership leverage. Early mornings, health routines, and protected family time aren’t just lifestyle changes. They enable clearer thinking, better delegation, and sustained expansion energy. Books: The 12 Week YearTraction

31 min
2D AGO

How My Principles Replaced My Instincts - with Radu Dumitrescu

Send us a text Restaurants don’t win on food alone, they win on feel. Radu Dumitrescu, founder & CEO of Stadio Hospitality Concepts, lays out a leadership philosophy built on culture, principles, and a relentless focus on the guest experience. A lifelong entrepreneur who started his first business at 18 and later sold a major printing operation, he entered hospitality almost accidentally. Then scaled to ~10 a la carte restaurants and 440 employees. His core idea: people don’t go out to “eat,” they go out to experience, and that experience is an equal balance of design, product, price, and service. Internally, he runs the company like a long game: promote from within, prioritize behavioral standards over pure technical skill, and build culture through consistent everyday actions, especially when nobody is watching. He also challenges the myth of “work-life balance” as a neat formula, arguing it’s all just life and the balance shifts with seasons. Inspired by Harvard Business School’s OPM cases and books like Principles, he’s codifying what made the company work via “Project Clarity” - documenting culture, roles, processes, and teams to scale to the next stage and improve guest experience. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Experience beats cuisine. Food matters, but the “why” of dining out is the full emotional package.The 4-part experience model: design + product + price + service. Each must pull its weight.Culture is behavior, repeated. It’s built daily, including when no one is watching.Authenticity is operational. “Do what you say” isn’t branding. It’s leadership hygiene.Hire and promote for attitude first. His “51–49” lens favors emotional/behavioral fit over pure technical skill.Retention is a strategy. Low turnover comes from care, stability, and real support beyond payroll.Structure reduces chaos. A big team isn’t inherently chaotic if roles and growth paths are clear.Over-planning can kill momentum. Early “guts” matter; details come after movement starts.Work-life balance isn’t a spreadsheet. Entrepreneurship runs in waves. Learn to self-regulate, not time-box.Codify to scale. “Project Clarity” (culture, roles, processes, teams) turns tribal knowledge into repeatable execution. Books: PrinciplesGood to GreatBeyond Entrepreneurship 2.0Zero to One

27 min
5D AGO

From a Billion-Dollar Market Cap to Insolvency: Decisions, Reflection, and a Robust Second Innings - Pujit Aggarwal

Send us a text From a $1B market-cap market darling to a wipeout, this conversation traces how Pujit Aggarwal - former MD & CEO of Orbit Corporation, a Mumbai-based luxury real estate developer that went public via an IPO - thinks about ambition, decision-making, and rebuilding after a steep reversal. Orbit, once a listed company, was ordered to be wound up by the Bombay High Court in April 2018 after it failed to repay debts; reporting around the same period cites liabilities exceeding ₹1,380 crore, which is roughly $150 million at current exchange rates. Across the interview, he explains Orbit’s original thesis - premium South/Central Mumbai redevelopment with unusually high quality standards - alongside what he describes as the drivers of distress: regulatory delays, high-cost debt, and expanding into larger, more capital-intensive land acquisitions. He frames the difficult period as something to “own,” likening it to a pilgrimage that required endurance, acceptance, and persistence, and says his “second innings” in real estate is now underway. He also reflects on how success has shifted for him over time - from wealth-first to prioritizing relationships, health/spirituality, and then business—and emphasizes OPM as a major inflection point in his learning and worldview. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Chaptered career view: He frames his life in “10-year blocks,” each with distinct lessons - early work, OPM learning, peak public-market years, loss/rebuild, and a new phase ahead.What he credits for early momentum: A mix of market understanding (South/Central Mumbai), redevelopment opportunity, and a deliberate bet on premium product positioning.Quality as a strategy choice: He repeatedly prioritizes durability/materials and long-term build quality, arguing the “bottom line will follow quality.”Where he locates the inflection: He attributes the downturn to a combination of policy/regulatory friction, high-cost debt, and shifting from smaller redevelopment plots to larger acquisitions once financing access improved.Cash-flow timing matters as much as demand: Even in a market where “anything sells,” he points to stalled construction and delayed revenues creating a severe cash-flow mismatch.Mindset under pressure: His coping frame is not denial or bargaining; it’s acceptance (“own the issue”) and endurance, described through the “pilgrimage” metaphor.Regulation: clearer, not simpler: He argues the regime has improved with greater disclosure and structure (he compares approvals to IPO-level disclosure), while still warning that gray areas and surprises remain.Title diligence as a core operator skill: He treats clean title as non-negotiable and suggests digitization has improved speed and access to information, but places responsibility on the developer to get to “100%.”Litigation preference: He advocates for commercial settlement, sitting across the table, rather than spending years in court, presenting negotiation as the practical path.Founder advice: protect baseline cash flows + preserve the core idea: His guidance is to secure steady cash flows for essentials (salaries, basic needs) while resisting over-dilution of the original entrepreneurial vision from too many external opinions.

28 min
JAN 26

The Quiet Math of a Meaningful Life and Its North Star - Rajan Shah

Send us a text If you had to write your obituary today, what would you want it to say - how many lives you lifted, or how perfectly you avoided failure? Rajan Shah’s story argues that the legacy worth leaving demands risk, learning, and the courage to fail early because resilience, impact, and integrity are built in the messy middle, not in a spotless record. Rajan Shah, founder and CEO of Capwell Industries in Kenya, shares a three-decade journey building a food manufacturing business rooted in staples (maize, wheat, rice, pulses) and evolving into higher-value foods (baked goods, beverages, ready-to-eat meals) while expanding across East Africa. He challenges the dominant “Africa is too hard” narrative: yes, there are real friction points like cost and corruption, but the opportunity is massive, driven by a young, growing population and a regional hub effect. Inside Capwell, innovation is treated as a core value and is paired with global benchmarking for quality rather than local comparisons. Rajan’s leadership compass centers on integrity (win-win relationships) and agility (fast, non-bureaucratic decisions). He frames resilience through lessons from COVID-era supply shocks, drought cycles, and climate change pushing the need to onshore supply and work more deeply with farmers. His “North Star” is purpose with lasting human impact: the real measure isn’t wealth, but lives touched. For young entrepreneurs, his advice is direct: take your shot, don’t fear failure, fail early to become stronger, and find mentors to keep you learning without quitting. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Lead with obituary-thinking: measure success by human impact that outlasts you, not by money or titles.Embrace failure as training: failing early builds resilience and increases odds of long-term success.Africa isn’t just risk, it’s scale: East Africa’s youth bulge and growth make it deeply investable, despite challenges.Innovation can be a discipline: embed it as organizational DNA (process, product, packaging), not as occasional bursts.Quality improves when you benchmark globally: don’t compare to local competitors. Aim for world standards.Integrity is a business strategy: win-win relationships across suppliers, customers, and government create sustainability.Agility beats bureaucracy: founders win by deciding fast and keeping teams lean and empowered.Resilience is local supply: COVID and shipping shocks highlight the need to reduce import dependence and strengthen local farming.Climate cycles are predictable—plan for them: drought and climate pressure aren’t surprises; build systems assuming disruption.Purpose makes hard decisions easier: a clear “why” (nutrition, farmers’ livelihoods, convenience) becomes the filter for strategy, partnerships, and growth.Books: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

26 min
JAN 23

Lessons You Only Learn When Things Fall Apart - Geetanjali AlamShah

Send us a text 47 litigations. That’s how deep the hole got after Geetanjali “Gee” AlamShah’s airline bet went sideways and it’s also the most hopeful part of this conversation: she climbed out. Not by pretending it didn’t hurt, but by getting disciplined, getting help, staying intentional, and refusing to lose hope. Gee is a first-generation entrepreneur who scaled a travel business, then made a bold, high-risk jump into aviation launching an international India route (Delhi–Baku–Delhi) by wet-leasing an aircraft from Azerbaijan Airlines. She didn’t raise capital; she leveraged herself and moved fast, even securing a license that others didn’t think she could get. But aviation is a brutal business: fixed costs don’t care about your confidence, and every empty seat burns cash. She ran out of money in late 2019 and paused, planning to relaunch in March 2020. Then COVID hit. That unexpected global pause, oddly, became her one blessing: it gave her time to put her house in order. The shutdown phase was ugly: 47 litigations, near-bankruptcy stress, and the emotional weight of facing employees, peers, and the world. What helped was community and clarity, especially the Harvard OPM network that pointed her to the right people and advice. The best guidance she received was simple and humane: put your own oxygen mask on first, but never forget the intention to pay people back over time. From that rubble, she rebuilt launching two new businesses in 2022: Voyage of WellnessEd2CareersHer reset wasn’t just strategic; it was personal. She leans hard on fitness, meditation (Vipassana), structure, and intellectual. She wakes early, meditates, trains/runs, journals at night, and spends serious time networking and learning. Her kids now run key parts of the businesses, she provides vision, strategy, and business development. And here’s the thesis she repeats like a mantra: hope isn’t a plan… until everything else is gone. Then hope becomes the only plan. Jim Collins told her: don’t lose hope, don’t lose faith in who you are. Because you’re only smarter now. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Failure does not define your worth; it only reveals what didn’t work.Confidence often peaks right before real learning begins.You must survive first before you can fix everything else.Clear intention and honesty matter more than flawless outcomes.Structure and routine keep you steady when motivation disappears.Community helps you think clearly when isolation distorts reality.Starting again is never starting from zero when you’ve lived the lessons.You don’t need certainty to move forward - only the willingness to take the next step.Holding on to the past can quietly block future progress.When all strategies fail, hope becomes a conscious, daily choice.Books: Autobiography of a YogiGood to Great How the Mighty Fall

30 min
JAN 22

Lessons from 12 Startups and a Lifetime in Tech - Brad Cowdrey

Send us a text Imagine waking up every day knowing your job is to suffer on purpose because that’s the price of building something that can dominate a category. Brad Cowdrey (OPM 49) explains why startups aren’t glamorous, why GenAI changes what “coding” even means, and how his company eveoy aims to let brands “fill stores with people” on demand. Brad describes himself as a deeply hands-on angel/operator often acting as CEO, CTO, and sales driver because he likes control, speed, and talent development. His core philosophy: don’t just write code; build systems that write code, a mindset he learned early while working around supercomputing. Today, he’s pushing engineers to shift from “coding” to higher-level thinking: prompting, agent swarms, and automation patterns that amplify output in the GenAI era. He traces his start to Colorado Springs’ military-tech ecosystem, where, as a teenager, he got unusual access to hardware, operating systems, repairs, and low-level computing forming a fearless “just learn it” habit: call experts, ask questions, and build anyway. That foundation led to a lifelong obsession with data: he sees data as the exhaust of human behavior and prefers scientific decision-making over intuition dressed up as analytics. He also shares a leadership model: startups move through distinct phases of construction, prototyping, operations and the CEO must change tools, tone, and org design accordingly. His daily resilience practice is simple but rigorous: reconnect to life goals every morning, pick 1–2 must-win actions for that day, and compound progress. OPM’s lasting value for him is the people, global perspectives, long-term friendships, and even meeting his co-founder. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Startups are “pain and suffering” by default—don’t enter if you’re optimizing for comfort.The new edge is “code that writes code.” GenAI pushes developers upward: design systems, workflows, and prompts/agents—not just features.Invest in people, not just products. Brad gets energy from stretching teams from doers into independent thinkers.Fear is usually fake data. His life pattern: stare it down, call someone, learn fast, build anyway.Data = exhaust of human behavior. Use it to decide, not to justify decisions you already made.Go for problems big enough to matter. He’s now only excited by “game-changer / category-creating” plays.Category creation is brutal. If there’s no competitor to copy, expect repeated build-destroy cycles until fit emerges.Sustainable businesses create clear value for every stakeholder. If one side of the system feels like it’s “doing work” while the other extracts value, the model eventually breaks.Know what phase you’re in. Construction vs operations require different leadership styles; mixing them breaks momentum.Resilience is daily re-anchoring. Re-state your life goals each morning, pick 1–2 critical actions, and let compounding do the rest. Books: Good to Great

40 min
JAN 21

The Quiet Vulnerability of Power and the Art of Executive Search - K. Sudarshan

Send us a text K. Sudarshan is a veteran executive search leader and Managing Partner at EMA Partners across India, Singapore, and the UAE. Sudarshan shares his journey from an accidental recruiter to building and listing one of India’s largest executive search firms. Drawing from 25+ years of experience working with founders, boards, and CEOs, he offers deep insights into leadership, talent decisions, governance, and scaling professional services firms. The conversation explores why executive search remains critical despite democratized talent data, how boards underestimate CEO onboarding, and what founders and organizations must unlearn when hiring senior leaders. Sudarshan also reflects on entrepreneurship, long-term value creation, people-centric leadership, the impact of fitness and endurance sports on mindset, angel investing, and lessons from Harvard Business School’s OPM program. Throughout, he emphasizes perspective, trust, frugality paired with ambition, and building institutions that outlast founders. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Entrepreneurial roots matter Growing up in a business family shapes risk appetite, frugality, and long-term thinking even when careers start accidentally.Think small, think big Run operations frugally (“think small”) while holding bold, long-term vision (“think big”).Best candidate ≠ right candidate Executive search is about contextual and cultural fit, not just credentials or network-driven hiring.Executive search blends art and science Assessing leadership fit requires structured evaluation and human judgment.Every company and founder is vulnerable Talent, continuity, and uncertainty affect startups and billion-dollar firms alike.People outperform ownership in professional services Overplaying professionalism and performance builds stronger, longer-lasting firms than equity-focused models.CEO onboarding is widely underestimated Integration and cultural assimilation matter as much as selecting the right leader.India’s leadership landscape has shifted Professional CEOs now dominate over promoters, reflecting stronger governance and global scale.Perspective anchors leadership in tough times Avoid knee-jerk decisions, trust proven performers, and remember that downturns are temporary.Long-term success is about credibility, not money Respect from clients, repeat relationships, and trust define sustainable success more than short-term financial metrics.Books: Straight from the Gut ExecutionNo Rules Rules

33 min
JAN 17

Exits, Term Sheets, and the Real Cost of Raising Capital - Alejandro Diez Barroso

Send us a text Alejandro Diez Barroso explains how bootstrapping two early e-commerce businesses in Mexico taught him the real constraint in many markets: access to growth capital. He sold not because he wanted to, but because scaling required funding and institutional readiness. That experience shaped DILA’s mission of investing across the Spanish-speaking world and helping founders build venture-backable companies with clear liquidity paths. He breaks down how exits actually happen , why governance/financial hygiene determines deal certainty, and why many founders misunderstand term sheets, especially preferred shares, liquidation preferences, and drag/tag rights. He also shares how LatAm is evolving from “copycats” to “tropicalized” models and increasingly global products, while still needing more liquidity events. Personal themes: know your business type (sell vs lifestyle), match capital to incentives/time horizons, make customers “heroes” (even when you have two), practice patience/compounding, and master selling as a foundational founder skill. Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation: Build type matters: “Built to sell” and “lifestyle” businesses require totally different strategies and only some are venture-fit.Capital is a commodity; alignment isn’t: Choose investors by incentives, timeframes, and behavior in bad times—not just valuation.Don’t raise money “because”: VC brings an implied exit clock and shared control; many founders accept this too late.Liquidity is hard, so be prepared early: Deals fail less from price and more from messy governance, weak reporting, and diligence surprises.Valuation is only one term: Preferences can make a “big exit” pay founders little or nothing if the pref stack is heavy.Avoid toxic structures: Participating preferred (and high multiple prefs) can be brutally expensive for founders.Board/control discipline: Don’t lose board control too early; it can force decisions (including sales) you didn’t intend.Drag/tag rights are not fine print: They can compel a sale or force you to buy out investors at offer terms—know what you’re signing.Selling timing is often opportunistic: Great companies attract unsolicited offers; the “right” time is when risk-adjusted certainty is compelling.Founders who compound can sell: Selling isn’t just customers. It’s vision to hires, cofounders, investors, partners, and the market.Books: The Hard Thing About Hard Things

42 min

5

out of 5

5 Ratings

A podcast where global leaders from the Harvard Business School Owner/President Management (OPM) community join in a personal capacity and share the real decisions, failures, and mental models behind building enduring companies. This podcast is independent and not affiliated with Harvard Business School.

Creator

Sohin Shah
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

42
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© 2026 Beyond the Case
Show Website

Beyond the Case