Adapt to win: Leadership for uncertainty and rapid change

Interview Summary

The Joy of Business and Entrepreneurial Purpose (00:00)

Kumar ties joy to pursuing a higher purpose—aligning head and heart—fueling discretionary effort, passion, and extraordinary outcomes that serve stakeholders beyond the self.

Navigating Disruption and Leadership in Business (05:40)

He maps forces reshaping business—AI, geopolitics, remote work, climate, gig economy, generational shifts, mental health—and argues for adaptive, contrarian, post–industrial-age leadership grounded in resilience and continual renewal.

Hidden Drivers of High Growth Businesses (16:41)

Sustained growth comes from obsessive customer understanding, rapid validation, multi-channel go-to-market, disciplined systems and metrics, bold marketing and brand building, and rigorous leadership that challenges complacency.

Case Studies and Lessons Learned (21:12)

Inside an engineering giant, Kumar built a contrarian digital venture—distinct culture, clear purpose, radical candor, calculated risks and relationships—scaling to industry leadership and creating an asset valued near half a billion.

Finding Joy in Adversity and Business (27:57)

He reframes adversity as feedback: reconnect to purpose, audit emotions, pivot early, and extract learning. A founder’s timely exit from misaligned ventures illustrates resilience, perspective, and regained momentum.

Transcript

Kumar Parakala: I've seen the trajectory of people who have all studied with me and who have been exceptionally successful from a professional and personal perspective. And those who have not, you know, they're okay, but they've not progressed much. And the entire difference between these two sets of people is the amount of risk they're prepared to take and the amount of discomfort they're able to experience, you know, working outside of their comfort zone. Success is directly proportional to risk taking, resilience, comfort, getting out of the comfort zone, and very importantly, challenging the status quo.

Barrak Alzaid: You're listening to Joy of Business, a collection of audio essays, timely discussions and stories featured on digitalentrepreneur.com. That was a clip from Kumar Parakala, global entrepreneur and author of Lead to Disrupt, Seven Keys to Success and Changing the World. In our conversation, Kumar explores how challenging the status quo, embracing discomfort and cultivating a growth mindset are the real keys to entrepreneurial success.

Keep listening to hear how he redefines leadership in a rapidly shifting world and why joy, resilience, and higher purpose are essential to building a lasting business.

Barrak Alzaid (00:00)

At digital entrepreneur, we often think of joy as the new success. Does that phrase resonate and what does that mean to you personally?

Kumar Parakala (00:11)

Yes, I think, you know, it is very important for people to pursue their dreams and dreams are connected to a higher purpose. Higher purpose is something that not only drives your mind, but also drives your heart. That's where you get joy putting in a huge amount of discretionary effort, which entrepreneurs do, whether they're sitting in a garage or whether they're getting in an office or wherever. And that passion, that energy drives the success of things that are of extraordinary nature. We have seen that. So that's what it is. You you've got to be connected.

Barrak Alzaid (00:49)

I love that idea of being connected to a greater purpose, I think is something entrepreneurs at any stage can really connect with. Kumar, to kick things off, can you give us a quick look at your journey so far? How did you get started as an entrepreneur? And what were some pivotal moments that led you to where you are today?

Kumar Parakala (00:57)

Yeah. Sure. I commenced my entrepreneurial journey soon after I left the university. In those days, computers were coming up and I was introduced to some of the technology at my university in India. Soon after that, I did a brief stint for six months and then decided to get into my own business of consulting. Since then,

And my first job was to consult for a cement company on technology at IT at that day, in those days for six months. since then, you know, I moved further. When I was in a of years time after that, I moved to Australia to pursue higher education, which was fashioniable those days to go study overseas. So I went to this place called Rockhampton. I had, you know, was at a university which was only giving me partial supports, partial scholarships. I had to earn my living. So Necessity is the mother of invention. So I had to start thinking outside the box. And my first venture, formal venture in Australia was called the Center for Business Information Management, which was a collaborative effort between the university where I was studying, the business school there and myself. And we kicked that off and very lucky within two years we generated close to $200,000 of revenue, helped fund a lot of scholarships, paid for my fees. And ever since then, I've never looked back. I've taken executive roles over many, many years, but most of my roles, in fact, all of my roles, even in the government involved a huge amount of entrepreneurial out of the box thinking. I don't survive in jobs that are business as usual, standard jobs, big titles. I don't survive in those jobs. And I found that, you know, again, you know, I got opportunity at KPMG to help co-found their the so-called technology advisory business, was when I left, was about $3 billion. Got out, started my own venture again, sold it to GHD, Trader Digital, and again, recently exited that venture as well. We built it to nine countries, 800 people, and the cost of the business was such a venture, it was close to about $400, $450 million.

So I've enjoyed my journey out of the box all my life and I get a lot of excitement out of this and also it helps me drive my focus.

Barrak Alzaid (03:25)

It can be hard when you're in that nine to five or corporate job and you have that entrepreneurial mindset or you have that entrepreneurial vision. How did you recognize that within yourself? Do you have advice for other people who might be feeling locked in, but they have dreams of something bigger?

Kumar Parakala (03:42)

Yeah, absolutely. know, when I got in, in fact, my first trainer, who first manager was an IBM, in those days, he was from IBM. And I used to challenge everything and I used to say, I don't understand, I don't agree with it. And he said to me, Kumar, if you keep doing what you're doing, you're not going to go very far in your career in those days, because compliance was the theme of any corporate job.

And funny enough, I didn't really take his advice very seriously. I continued on my streak of challenging, being a contrarian in a respectful way. And that has become the foundational pillar for my success. And so what I would like to say is that, and that's the reason why I've written my book as well, is that never accept the status quo. Never accept the comfort zone you're in. Every day get up and change and think differently and people.

And I'll give you this very good example, Barrak. I've seen the trajectory of people who have all studied with me and who have been exceptionally successful from a professional and personal perspective. And those who have not, you know, they're okay, but they've not progressed much. And the entire difference between these two sets of people is the amount of risk they're prepared to take and the amount of discomfort they're able to experience, you know, working outside of their comfort zone. Success is directly proportional to risk taking, resilience, comfort, getting out of the comfort zone, and very importantly, challenging the status quo. And that's what my book is all about.

an entrepreneur and I'm working with some great entrepreneurs right now is being able to thrive in an intense environment of adversity and need for resilience, need for adaptability and the need for the growth mindset all the time. There's four or five other things, you know, and that's what entrepreneurialism is. If people don't want to do that, they should go and get a 9 to 5 job.

Barrak Alzaid (05:40)

Your book, “Lead to Disrupt,” explores leadership in an age of technology and uncertainty. For entrepreneurs navigating this space, what does it actually look like to adapt to and harness disruption? How does that tie into sustaining growth beyond just adopting new tools?

Kumar Parakala (05:57)

So we are living in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. The world is—every day we are impacted by forces that we have very little control about. And we are realizing the world has become more uncertain since COVID. We are uncertain. So what are the forces acting upon? First and foremost, is technology, artificial intelligence and automation is impacting everything that we do today. It's a force that we never anticipated will have such a huge impact. Geopolitical tensions, we're talking about tariffs now, but before we had these wars, all those sorts of things. We continue to have Ukraine and Russia war and others impacting our mindsets. Remote work, since COVID, we're no longer sitting in offices. We're working from all parts of the world. And again, remote work is another area that is impacting us. Climate change sustainability is again another force that is shaping our thinking. The gig economy. So people are talking about, what does AI mean or what technology means to be able to create new types of business models as we move forward? And again, that's the gig economy taking off.

People of my generation have started their careers 25, 30 years, they're kind of moving out into the workforce and you're seeing a very younger, very dynamic, very agile, very capable workforce that grew up with technology coming up. Again, that's a huge shift. If you remember right now, if you look at most of the leaders are people who have gone through the traditional line of training in management and they've become leaders going forward, younger generation will take up leadership roles and they would not have the same amount of, you know, same amount of time spent on the job because the jobs are also changing very fast. Also, mental well-being is another issue which people are getting impacted. People are making very careful choices to make sure that mental well-being is preserved. So these are all the factors that are shaping the direction of the businesses today and the success of those businesses. And therefore, I said, how do we really navigate through this? What kind of leadership is needed? Because our leadership paradigms are all hundred years old and we no longer have the relevance of the environment in which the industrial age leadership principles are valid anymore. We are in a new age. So that's where I thought about it and I put pen to paper, wrote this book because I personally went through the journey myself.

And in essence, this book is my philosophy for leadership and also it is proven as far as I'm concerned by the success of the ventures and other things that I've been involved in. Yeah.

Barrak Alzaid (08:43)

That makes a lot of sense. Now shifting from a kind of big picture perspective to the day to day, do you have any tools, frameworks or habits that you personally use to stay innovative, work with your team, drive meaningful growth? What do these things look like for you on an individual level?

Kumar Parakala (08:51)

Yes.

So for me, on an individual level, I've already alluded to this, it's very important to have the right mindset. The right mindset in my view, which I call the disruptive mindset, is to say, hey, I'm never satisfied with where I am today. I always want to do things better, but the benefit...

of the world for the benefit of my stakeholders, the disruptive mindset. A disruptive mindset also means you are contrarian. Not everybody's going to love you. And if you again want to be in the business of being loved, you can't be getting criticism as well as praise. So the first and foremost in my way of thinking is the mindset, most successful people have a very unique mindset.

Second one is a purpose, a disruptive high purpose. That means it needs to have a huge impact back beyond yourself. It needs to be for the general good, the public, or whatever. And you can make profit out of it, but it needs to be bigger than you. The vision needs to be bigger than you. And that's high purpose.

As I said, have my DNA is every time I get into a comfort zone, I start getting worried and it makes me it makes me feel that I'm not progressing in life. So every time I got a job, we're very comfortable. I've conquered everything, I've done everything. Now the job is a business as usual. I'm at the top of the pyramid.

I built my career on top of the pyramid. A lot of people stay there because they're enjoying the ride and they've just reached there after a lot of hard work. I quit. I get back to the bottom of the pyramid. And I've done that now three times in my career. In government, the CIO, I did whatever I could in three years. I got the government excellence award. And then I realized like business as usual, I quit my job, joined KPMG and as a project manager, from a very senior project manager, and again, built my way up to being a global managing partner over 15 years.

Again, quit that, became a startup entrepreneur. So I think that has really given me new life, that ability to get outside the comfort zone at a very, very radical level. I build great relationships. The relationships that I've built are, again, people who challenge my thinking, very different kind of people, very different kind of mindsets. again, disruptive relationships, challenge the status quo, which I've already covered. And I'm a big, big, big believer in complacency, challenging the complacency as it goes. So those are some of the things I've covered in the book because you asked me for a framework. This is the framework on a daily basis. I check myself.

How is my mindset? Am I still driven by the higher purpose? Am I too happy in my comfort zone or I'm challenging myself? Am I building enough relationships which are, which can add significant value to me and I can add value to them? And status quo and challenging complacency. So I ask almost on a daily basis,

I don't get 100 % right answers, so I just go back and work as a self-improvement exercise as well.

Barrak Alzaid (12:12)

That's super interesting because, you know, as, as you're kind of alluding to mindset is an ongoing conversation that you need to have with yourself, an ongoing interrogation and innovation in any form change in any form is by its nature disruptive and can also be very uncomfortable.

Kumar Parakala (12:21)

Yeah.

Barrak Alzaid (12:33)

You've written about the importance of tracking technology, market trajectories, while avoiding short-termism. So for early stage entrepreneurs, especially those who may be first-time entrepreneurs or developing their first venture,

How do you recommend balancing that long view with the pressure of day-to-day execution?

Kumar Parakala (12:52)

Yeah, that's a great question. And as you may have seen, I've started a company after I exited my venture last month called Trivico and the whole idea there is to help early stage entrepreneurs kick off, start. Many of them are still thinking about it and, you know, they engage with us and we motivate them to kick off on the entrepreneurial journey from day one.

So as I've alluded before and written my book, entrepreneurial journey is number one, first and foremost, not about the product, not about the marketplace, not about who is going to buy. It's about the entrepreneur himself or herself. You've got to work on yourself. You've got to be the leader. You've got to be the person that is needed to be an entrepreneur. So that's captured in my book.

The second thing for early stage entrepreneurs is that, you know, expect things not to be like the first time or the second time or the third time. And that is the process of iteration. You know, after running a $3 billion business, I thought, know everything. I'll go start my startup and I'll create this service offering and these products which my clients would like. And I jumped into it, spent six months, realized that's not what the world needs. And I had to go back to the drawing board.

It was like eating a humble pie because, you know, when you're running a big business, you think that you know everything and then you go there and you realize that's not what the world wants. no matter who you are, whether you're highly successful entrepreneur or whether you are an early stage entrepreneur, the world is changing at the faster pace than you are. And therefore aligning to the changing world is on a daily basis, more important and that means that you go through. So those are some of the points. And then the third one is, you know, people talk about, let me sort this out and let me build this product. And this is sort of the best product in the world. And let's put it on the table. And they spend 12 months, 24 months, and then they realize they go to the market and that's not what people are looking for. They're not able to communicate. what one needs to know is before you start spending a lot of your discretionary time,

Just make sure the idea that you're working on is what the world needs. And that means even if the idea is 5 % developed, 10%, 15%, keep checking with your ecosystem, with your stakeholders so that you don't get to a point where it's like you spend too much of time and you're not good. And that is the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs who are technically oriented. They want to build this technology based, you know, something that everybody will get impressed by. Only technical people get impressed with technological things and I'm not underestimating that. But real people, community, business, they get impressed with the impact that the solution is going to make. So entrepreneurs need to balance both. One on the technology side, being sure it's the right one if they're in technology space.

But very importantly, communicate, engage, gain feedback and move forward. So those are some of the things I would like to suggest to early stage entrepreneurs. And while they are engaging and gaining feedback, they can also look at, you know, who can support from funding and investment perspective when their product or their business is ready. And those kind of what could be their pitch. So those are the sorts of things I would like to suggest people to think about seriously in their early.

Barrak Alzaid (16:20)

Yeah, and I know that talking to your stakeholders, talking to your customers or ideal customer is so key it's always going to pay dividends down the line when you invest in those conversations early on, not just for the product development, but also just for your audience in general.

As far as this topic, one of the things that you really explore is the hidden drivers behind high growth businesses. the basic idea and technical expertise, and you touched upon this a little bit, from your perspective, what are some other overlooked or underestimated factors that actually shape long-term scalable success?

Kumar Parakala (17:02)

I had again the pleasure of building businesses, my last business that I had just exited in March. It grew 47 % CAGR over six to seven years. know, so very high growth. And we could only achieve that high growth by doing a few things. Okay.

The first and foremost we did, and these are the hidden drivers, to be very, clear on what the world needs, what the clients need, what your customers need. Don't get into your own thinking about this is what the customers need. And you could be wrong because their needs are changing fast. So understand what the customers need a relationship with those customers.

So market connectivity is, I mean, I've already spoken about personal mindset and all that needs to happen before you get into this. one of the things we should look at is, what do the customers need? How fast they are changing? Number two, how quickly can we build something or show something and validate it? Okay.

You don't need to build the whole solution. You don't need to build the whole service. You say, hey, I'm thinking about this. What do you think? And just kind of even build it on the paper. So testing, understanding what is needed, quickly putting something together, testing with the customer. So that whole customer loop is a number one driver of any success as an entrepreneur. I mean, that comes before anything else.

The other thing is, know, once you have something to show and it's proven, then you need to have a, I call it a go-to-market approach. And many times, I'm using some technical words, there's a multi-channel go-to-market approach. That means go-to-market approach is nothing but how do you sell? Okay. You can sell through the internet.

You can sell directly on a one-to-one communication. You can sell that through partners, whatever you've got. You can sell that in forums, technical forums, and all those sorts of things where you're exhibiting solutions. So that's called multi-channel go-to-market approach. How do you sell the solution? So that's another aspect that one needs to, you know...think through and be very clear about how do you really sell to the clients when you're scaling up. Then the next one is making sure that there are systems and processes in place to be able to create accurate information about how successful your ventures are, how successful your endeavors are. You've got the right financial information.

You need the ability to be able to interpret that in the right way. So that comes as a part of the accountability. You're gonna have the right accountability framework for yourself to be able to say, this is the direction where I want to go based on these parameters. I'm going in the right direction or I'm used to it. So that is another driver. One more is, building the public perception. And a lot of people say, hey, I'm a technical guy. I really don't like going out. I really don't like talking about myself. I'm a very humble person. You I don't like to brag about my products. I want people to look at it, look at them, feel motivated. Never works that way.

we need to make sure that we are marketing and branding our solutions the right way. And that's always worked for me because if people have a positive view, you market in a positive way, their ability to consider you goes signal. So marketing branding is very important.

And last but not least is leadership. Leadership means what I've just mentioned before, ability to challenge yourself, learn, adapt, be resilient most. So those are some of the hidden drivers which are much more than building a technical solution.

Barrak Alzaid (20:54)

That makes a lot of sense. I'm wondering, since you've worked with such a wide range of clients and teams, are there any specific stories or case studies that come to mind? Which of the less visible drivers did they tackle?

What was the outcome? Were there key lessons that we can share?

Kumar Parakala (21:12)

Yeah, sure. So I would just give you my own example where we build this venture and this business called GHT Digital that just exited. And that was in a, I started that venture in a predominantly civil engineering business. The business that I was a part of was a global professional services firm with engineering talent.

Exceptional engineering talent, roads, dams, ports, all this critical infrastructure, wonderful people. In that environment, I had to be a complete contrarian to create this brand new business. And when people say technical excellence is more important compared to having the vision.

And then that is good for the traditional business, technical excellence is needed. I would say that's good for traditional business, but not for the new business that we are creating. For the new business, we need to have a very clear, disruptive, higher purpose is why we are doing it. So what we've done is we have built this business in a very counterintuitive way; different culture, different strategy, different mindset, different behaviors that resulted in a very unique opportunity. And we were rated number one in the $200 billion industry last year for our progress, our success over the last four or five years. So the point I'm making here is that it is very important. And in this case, we dreamt big.

We thought we always wanted to be number one in the industry. So we ran big even when we were only 10 people. We built great relationships. We've driven transformational change, not only in the $3 billion business that I was a part of, but also the entire industry. We took calculated risks and managed them well. And we have always focused on: How can we differentiate ourselves from a client point of view? And we will engage in communication and I would say engage in communication, give feedback, take feedback, always involve in respectful radical candor, no point. So we created all those and the outcome is we had an asset that some would value at half a billion dollars in value.

That's a great case study to show how a disruptive way of thinking has actually helped us create an asset which is considered very valuable. Entrepreneurs who are one or two or three people entrepreneurs, they have to go through this on a daily basis to be able to get to where they want to get to.

Barrak Alzaid (23:47)

That's great. And I love that you talked earlier about being counter to or disruptive within a corporate work environment. And even as an entrepreneur running a company, it's also important to think of alternative angles, think of alternate ways of challenging or running counter to your natural impulses. So I appreciate that transparency because that can also be challenging.

You had recently started working with a company called Tebby, and I'd love to hear more about that and the vision for expanding to support and work with entrepreneurs. It sounds like a really unique opportunity and a really unique value proposition as well.

Kumar Parakala (24:37)

Yes, thank you for that, Barrak. So after I exited my business, I thought I'm just going to spend the next 12 months doing nothing, admiring the views and just lying back and having a drink. And very quickly I realized that that's a very, very boring thing to do. So I started Thriveco, which is an entrepreneurship company. But then I was very fortunate to meet with a very successful disruptive leader based out of Austin. And he has already created marketplaces which were industry leaders. And through conversations, I was truly inspired by his views and his future direction, and joined this company, is Tabhi. Tabhi has a very successful travel marketplace called Mondee. It's been there for about 10 years. So the other things that we are thinking about going forward and doing is create alternate marketplaces. So one of the things that is...

That is the vision of the founder of Tabhi. His name is Prasad Gundumogula. Prasad's vision is to help entrepreneurs in early stages to basically launch their ventures and be successful on their journey. If you look at the entire entrepreneurial life cycle, there are things that they need.

They need idea validation, need services to think ahead, pitches to be made, they need people who will fund them, all those sorts of things. So what we want to do is we want to create a platform that will allow for all the ecosystem players that the entrepreneurs need to be available to them through a marketplace arrangement and enable almost the vision of Prasad, the founder of the business to enable 10 million entrepreneurs through this endeavor. And we are going to work in some of the most populous countries in the world like India and connect the US.

But wherever is this explosion in entrepreneurial activity, we were able to launch this platform. again, those are the sorts of things which now with agent tech AI and the technologies that we have can have help in a very, very big way entrepreneurs. I mean, I was just using a tool the other day just as a side diversion, where in olden days, I would do a PowerPoint slide and spend like five days. This particular AI enabled tool, you just put in some text, you put in all the data and it spins out beautifully created PowerPoint slides. What would take me a week will take me 10 minutes or 15 minutes. So I think those are the sorts of things can really expedite the journey of entrepreneurism and we are hoping that we can bring this vision to fruition in the coming years.

Barrak Alzaid (27:31)

That's amazing. And I think it really is important, as you said, to expedite, to facilitate the journey rather than diverge or divert to, you know, the next shiny AI tool and really understanding what you need and connecting it to what the outcome you desire is so key.

I have just one last question for you. At Digital Entrepreneur, we're big on reconnecting entrepreneurs with the joy of business. When things get hard, what helps you get back to feeling joy in life and in business?

Kumar Parakala (27:58)

Yeah, things are always hard for an entrepreneur, even when you're a very successful entrepreneur these great entrepreneurs don't have easy life, but they have this passion.

They have this energy and that energy comes from the higher purpose.

For me, when things go tough, I rarely ask my higher purpose whether that is strong enough to drive me. adversity is in a way a feedback mechanism. One feedback mechanism for me about my leadership and whether I need to improve on my skills the way I'm feeling. You've got to evaluate your feelings and say, hey, I'm feeling this way, I'm feeling this way, are the feelings appropriate? do I need to do? Number one. Number two, it's also an early sign of things needing to get it right. I'll give you a quick example. I have a friend here, Nebeli. He launched two ventures and within six months he realized that he has to pull back from both of the ventures.

One was he found he cannot trust his partners. And two, he found in the second venture that it was like very complex and high financial commitment. pulled out. So he was getting completely dejected. Say, hey, I put my six months to 12 months effort into this and this is kind of pull back, I've canceled it. And he was right in dumps. And I said, look, imagine what would have happened had you spent five years, build this business and then realize that your partners are not trustworthy.

He said, I never thought about that. Yeah. So I said, if you pulled out right now, you saved four and a half years of effort and you now can pivot. And that gave him a completely new perspective on how to deal with the adversity he faced. So I think it's how you interpret what is happening to you can always be very beneficial. And I always made a commitment to myself.

No matter what, no matter how bad the situation is, I will never ever tag that as a terrible or a negative experience. It is a learning experience. I'm not feeling good about it. I'm going to acknowledge it, but I want to learn. I want to adapt. I want to change. And if I can do that, then I think it becomes pretty good. So again, a long answer, but Barrak, that's what entrepreneurs need to do. They need to challenge themselves and say, the feelings are right or not, and then validate the feelings and then add a positive narrative to their experience.

Barrak Alzaid (30:45)

And you make a really important point, which is you need people you trust around you, friends and peers who have been in it or who can help you see that perspective because it's really easy to be super hard on yourself and down and to perceive a lot of things as failure and to be able to have someone like yourself give your friend that perspective is so valuable.

Thank you, Kumar, so much for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. I know that some of our listeners or many of our listeners will be really eager to learn more about some of these things that you've shared today. How can they best tap into that?

Kumar Parakala (31:09)

Yeah sure.

Barrak, I've captured all these ideas and thoughts in my book, “Lead to Disrupt: Seven Keys to Success and Changing the World.” It's available on all major platforms, including Amazon. And, you know, it explains all these traits that I mentioned in detail with examples and case studies. And, yeah, if your listeners are interested, they can go and get a copy.

And they can also personally reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'm more than happy to spend some time giving advice if I'm able to. The best way to reach me is through LinkedIn as well.

Barrak Alzaid (31:56)

Thank you so much for that generous offer and for sharing your time with us today.

Kumar Parakala (32:01)

Thank you, Barrak, for this opportunity to participate in this podcast of Digital Entrepreneur.