As CFO, India and South Asia for Alcatel-Lucent, Sandeep Gulati’s key challenge is to help the company consolidate its business in India and drive profitable growth. He is also responsible for driving process orientation, governance and compliance.

Gulati believes that telecom’s reach and impact on people’s lives is set to increase in India. “With the improved investment climate, cutting-edge technologies will be introduced, which will re-define the user experience,” he says. “Communication will touch every Indian’s life, either through pure voice services in areas where telecom services are yet to reach or through sophisticated converged offerings in a highly digitised world.”

Gulati has been a part of the telecom industry for over 15 years and has worked in leadership positions with organisations such as Ericsson and Huawei. Outside telecom, he has been associated with companies such as General Motors Corporation and SRF. He recalls his stint as business controller with Ericsson as his most memorable. He got the opportunity to be a part of the path-breaking managed capacity deal that the company signed with Airtel. “This deal re-shaped the “pay as you grow” business model and demonstrated how a commercial contract could be a win-win for both the customer and the vendor,” he says. “It also taught me that having an idea at the concept level is one thing, but to actually bring it to life as a workable business model is another ballgame. The challenge lay in moving away from pure box supplies and services to innovative solutions.”

As a leader, Gulati believes in delegating work so that the team learns and grows and, at the same time, leaves him time to focus on business strategy. His emphasis is on devising long-term strategy and establishing flexible yet strong work processes to ensure that last-minute fire-fighting is not required. “Finance today has moved far ahead of the traditional role of bean-counting to forming business partnerships. As a CFO, I have to be adaptable to different situations and build strong relationships with internal and external customers. One of my key strengths is my ability to look beyond the maze of data and make the numbers speak the truth,” he says.