Pragati Leadership instituted The Inspiring and Successful Leadership Awards to honor exemplary leadership and motivate others to follow these shining examples. In September 2024, the third edition of the awards was presented to distinguished winners.
At Pragati Leadership, we have our finger on the pulse of the world as it rapidly embraces digital transformation. Whether it’s data science, AI or machine learning, leadership plays a crucial role in this exciting journey and the world needs great leaders who can pave the way, bringing their cross-cultural transformation to all echelons of the organization.
At the 2024 awards, Mr. Prashant Pansare, Founder and CEO of Rubiscape, was chosen as a winner in the Emerging Business Leader of the Year. Prashant’s leadership is shaping the future of this data science, AI, and machine learning business. Mr. Prashant Pansare is one of the most committed leaders we know and his innovative mindset is amply demonstrated in the number of patents he has in advanced analytics and cognitive systems.
The Accidental Entrepreneur
Mr. Prashant calls himself an ‘accidental entrepreneur’. As was wont to happen, he followed the typical path early on by getting a mechanical engineering degree, followed by an MBA and landed himself an IT job. But that’s where the typical story ends.
Disrupting the Status Quo
Finding himself dissatisfied with the way things were, Mr. Prashant got thinking. IT is a services industry and everyone is in the rat race to win the next big contract. But as the saying goes, the problem with the rat race is that even of you win, you are still a rat. So, what is his true accomplishment?
It was 2004 and the world was abuzz with the first-generation entrepreneurial craze. So, Mr. Prashant decided to set up a company in business intelligence and built it up as a bootstrap for 20 years. Today, the company is proud to serve the digital intelligence needs of more than 100 fortune clients.
Coexistence and Co-Creation
It might sound simple and he does claim that the business model was actually fairly simple. People are either customers or rivals. Either way, he saw both as an opportunity to coexist and co-create value for business. They were exciting times. To go beyond technology, to truly understand the customer’s business and find ways to help them excel was a challenge that we welcomed.
Leadership Through Change
Mr. Prashant believes that leadership is essentially two things – an inside-out approach and an outside-in approach. Leaders create the right environment but the environment also builds leaders. The lockdown was one of the most significant phases that changed the industry a lot, and all businesses and leaders had to reinvent themselves to keep up.
Evolving as Coaches and Mentors
Having said that, is it enough for leaders to only think of themselves? They need to lead the change; they need to evolve beyond being taskmasters and turn into coaches and mentors. That is what led to building on the experience gained and productizing it into India’s first data science and artificial intelligence software product from Pune. Today, this code has clients in some of the most prestigious bastions of Indian industry, such as the Indian defense, India’s largest container handling port, and several large enterprises, too.
Gratitude for Team Effort and Support
Mr. Prashant is quick to acknowledge the R&D division, the industry captains, the media and the nation as a whole for their faith shown in this Indian product. He said that it is significant because this software actually goes against the flow. He went on to add that there are still numerous perceptions to manage but it is an exciting adventure and he hopes it is an inspiration for others.
Not one to claim credit all by himself, Mr. Prashant thanked his team for their work and his wife for all her support in bringing this dream to fruition. He also expressed his gratitude to Arun Wakhlu for setting a benchmark as a first-generation entrepreneur and to Pragati Leadership, one of the top leadership training companies in India, for conceptualizing this program. Bringing all these inspiring role models together could be akin to creating one of the best CEO training programs.Speak to one of the Top Leadership Training Companies in India, schedule a call with a Pragati Leadership expert today.
