Chasing Greatness to Find Enlightened Leadership with Rajeev Kapur, CEO

Find Enlightened Leadership with  Leader, Author & Innovator, Rajeev Kapur

Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall, and in this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Rajeev Kapur to discuss how to chase greatness. Now let me tell you a little bit more about Rajeev. Over his career, Rajeev has been a part of the leadership team at Dell, where he built a $1 billion-plus business in the US and managed Dell’s, China and South Asia businesses.

Today, he was the CEO of 1105 Media, a leading media and marketing services company, in 2021. In 2022, Rajeev was a finalist for entrepreneur and innovator of the year from the Orange County Business Journal. He is a YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) member and received his MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business. In 2021, Rajeev became a best-selling author when his new leadership book, Chase Greatness, became the most downloaded leadership book on Amazon in November and December. He is an accomplished keynote speaker and executive coach for companies like AT&T and Amazon, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as we talk about his newest book, Chase Greatness.

Meet Rajeev Kapur, CEO of 1105 Media

Jenn DeWall:  Rajeev, thank you so much for joining us on this show today. I am excited to talk about your new book. Hey, I think we could all learn a thing or two about what it takes to chase greatness. And I just want to start by saying thank you so much for donating your time. I know you are busy, but thank you for making time for the Leadership Habit audience. We are so grateful to have you on the show.

Rajeev Kapur:  Oh, it’s, it’s my pleasure. So excited to be here with you guys. You know, you guys have just an amazing reputation, and I’m just glad I could be here and hopefully provide some good value.

Jenn DeWall:  Yeah, absolutely, I know you will. Well, I always love, and I know that every podcast starts this way, but I love a great origin story. So Rajeev, could you go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience? Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you came to be where you are now, as well as your new book that we’re gonna be talking about today.

Rajeev’s Path to Enlightened Leadership

Rajeev Kapur:  Yeah, you know, it’s funny, people always ask me about my origin story, and I always think about something funny to talk about, like, you know, He came from another planet or whatever, right? But I, I wish I had something really exciting like that, but I don’t. But I’m just a Southern California boy, born and bred, you know, I was born and raised in Southern California in the LA area and you know, kind of lived a normal life in the, in the San Fernando Valley in the eighties. And so I was a valley dude. So the kids that watched Cobra Kai today, I’m like, Hey, I was the karate kid age back then, right? <Laugh>, so,

So it’s like, you know, I’m watching that show, it’s like my kids are like, Hey, you’re Daniel La Russo, Dad I’m like, yeah, I guess so. So anyway, so, but that’s kind of where I got the start. And then, you know, I did my undergrad out here in Southern California. I did my master out here. And then I think the big kind of step for me, and one of the biggest, one of the biggest lessons I learned early in my career was you have to go to the job. And so for me, it was back in 91, the economy was a little bit of a challenge down here in Southern California at the time. And I got a job working for an old computer company called Gateway 2000, which I’m sure not many people remember. And so I think we had a gateway computer. Yeah, it was the cow spotted boxes and everything.

And so, but you know, but the headquarters for game was in South Dakota, Sioux City, South Dakota. And so I went from being a southern California boy and I actually had to move to Sioux City, Iowa. There’s a tri-state area. So, cause you lived in Iowa and you drove in South Dakota every day. And so I did that for a couple years. Finally, it was like 56 degrees below zero one day with the wind chill factor. It is really bad, really challenging. And so I decided that, hey, you know what, this wasn’t for me.

From Michael Dell’s Assistant to General Manager of South Asia & India

Rajeev Kapur: And after a couple years I got recruited to Dell,and went to Dell and started off on the phones and after about six or seven months being on the phones, I got an opportunity to work for Michael Dell, first executive assistant for a little while. And that was really exciting and that really helped propel my career.

At Dell worked my way up there, eventually ran the west coast for Dell to grew that to a huge business, like a billion dollar plus business. And then, you know after after a few years of doing that, I had moved back to Southern California. Because I was spending all my time out here and I was married and preferred to be on the West Coast. And you know, Michael called one day and said, Rajeev, we’d really like you to go to China. So in 2000 packed up and went to China and went to kind of like that Beijing area for a while. And then ended up back and forth between the Dell factory and Shaman. And then there was some other challenges being in China back at that time. So ended up transferring into the Hong Kong office so it would be easier for me to fly back and forth.

And it was much easier to my wife cause we were pregnant at the time. So we did that for a couple years and built that up. And that was exciting to be there at the early days of Dell China. And then was asked to go run a big part of South Asia. So I eventually became general manager and of South and BP general manager, the South Asia market, and launch Dell, India and all these other cool countries. And that was an exciting time and an absolute amazing opportunity. And then, you know, I decided to move back to Southern California. Our second son was born in Singapore, wasn’t seeing the family much. And so made that choice to spend more time with family and, you know, became a bit more entrepreneurial. I went to a really small e-commerce company, did well there, then went to a startup, anddid well there.

And then went to another kind of sort of VC-funded company. Did, don’t, you know, that that went pretty good. And now for the last eight plus years I’ve been running a B2B marketing and media services company called 1105 Media and 1105 doesn’t have any meeting or anything. Like, that’s just what it, and so anyways, I’ve been doing that. And in the meantime, you know, I became an author. I sold my first movie script, just finished my second one. I’m a huge sports fan, big Laker fan. I went to the LeBron game the other night where he, when he went, I was there. And that was exciting. So that was really happy. That was cool. I took my son, cause it’s his birthday today, he turned 22 and so that was kinda birthday present for him. So yeah, about me I’m excited to here and CEO companies.

I’ve had three exits and I mean that smaller, small business was called Smart Home. We got the award for the best place to work here in Orange County. Actually. Lucky enough to get that award twice, you know. So again, you know, I could go on and on and on, but it’s really a testament to the teams I’ve had the pleasure of leading. And I’m really passionate about leadership and the future of leadership and I think it has to change. I think there’s an absolute ton of disruption coming not just in the workforce, but technologically as well. I think we’ve seen that over the last couple of weeks with chat GPT and these other technologies that are coming. I think there’s massive disruption coming and I don’t think current leadership, current CEOs are ready. And so that’s what I’m trying to pontificate, that you have to get ready. And I call it, and I call it enlightened leadership is what people have to embrace.

How Should Leaders Be Preparing for Leading in the Future?

Jenn DeWall:  I love that. Well, you’ve shared a lot and obviously you were at Dell likely, I’m guessing. Not that we’re gonna give the years during a period of massive growth. And I mean, I think that, I remember the period even 20 years ago, like Dell was, I, I just remember it, it was everywhere and it was everything. Like what an exciting time to be with the organization. And then of course to witness LeBron, I mean, you, I love the, not only the, of course global experience that you’ve had so many different organizations, so many different leadership roles, and I really appreciate you because I know that you have so much value in insights and talking about enlightened leadership. So diving into what the future of work looks like, and I know we’re going to talk about your book, Chase Greatness. From your perspective, what do you think needs to happen or what do we need to be prepared for as it relates to leading in the future?

Rajeev Kapur:  You know, so that’s a great question. So I think at the end of the day, there are two big things that are gonna be happening over the course of the next, let’s say 24 to 30 months. And we, we can go plus or minus on that. Okay? The first one is, is that you’re gonna see a lot more boomers retiring from the workforce, number one. And you’re gonna see a lot more Gen Z and Millennials moving into the workforce, right? Millennials are already here, Gen Zers are gonna be coming in. You think about, you know, the kids who are like, who are kind of just, who are now 20 years old in the next couple years, they’re gonna be 23 y