CEO Insights India

Being the first person to qualify for IIT JEE in his family and school, Pukhraj Sethiya , Co-Founder & COO of ReVal Consulting, took the toughest and most straightforward decision to join IIT Dhanbad when no one in his family, or friends, or relatives had any exposure to mining. “I owe my success to IIT Dhanbad. My four years in college not only taught me technical aspects of mining but also cemented my learnings to efficiently analyse, communicate and evoke confidence which help make relationships and maintain them over long run”, avers Pukhraj, when asked about the significance of IIT Dhanbad in his life.

Starting from building seamless connections in the industry to navigating difficult terrain, continuing in conflicting situations, and even engaging with people with different views, perseverance, and never die attitude, IIT Dhanbad gifted Pukhraj with some key ingredients to address complex problems that helped him emerge as a seasoned professional and entrepreneur. Pukhraj has not only executed over 350 consultancy projects across various areas but has also advised numerous global companies as well as new entrants in the mining sector, across a range of areas and commodities including participation in mineral block auction, asset acquisition, mining sector entry strategy, process improvement, identification and selection of mining partner/MDO, auction of mineral assets, entering into long term mineral supply contracts, capacity building, and so on during his career.

Pukhraj engages in an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights.

Tell us about your journey so far. What inspired you to establish ReVal Consulting?
After my Mining Engineering from IIT Dhanbad (ISM Dhanbad then), I joined consulting which was unfamiliar territory for me. With very few active consulting professionals in India back then, who were focused on the management consulting domain across the mining sector, the journey was not easy. However, with sheer determination and support from my Partner in PwC, we built a formidable Mining Sector focussed

practice and were able to connect with business leaders and CXOs across many companies in India. The opportunity to solve complex problems and allowance for experiments kicked me and I never realized when it became my passion. My stint with numerous conglomerates including Adani gave me exposure to the way business is managed and understand investor perspective in a much better way. Working with Promoters in Adani sharpened my skills, vision as well as risk taking capability.

However, I always felt there are gaps in the industry and we are missing professional firms who can connect various dots to provide a holistic solution to companies and bring best practices by integrating management practices, financial principles as well as technical aspects. To provide holistic solutions to clients with a focus on outcomes to drive and deliver value rather than focus on pieces, the foundation of ReVal Consulting was laid.

Our objective is to democratize knowledge and expertise of this sector lying in pieces across the globe and for that, we are working towards bringing financial, commercial, technical, and technological aspects together along with bringing experts from diverse fields together to provide a one-stop solution to mining sector clients. While currently, we are working on pure-play consulting solutions, going forward we see ourselves developing products by leveraging technologies that can help clients evolve their solutions for the challenges they face.

Define ReVal Consulting as an organization and its position in the market?
I and my Co-Founding partner, Kumar Rajesh Singh, both have worked in Mining Industry for 15 years and 30 years respectively in relevant areas. We had been fortunate to be engaged with several marque projects and complex mining deposits during our association with various organizations. Given that our combined experience, as well as the experience of associates, is a perfect blend of consulting and industry, we see ReVal be focussing more on operational aspects to drive value for our clients. We are working on conceptualizing projects, and winning those projects for clients, planning, designing as well as hand-holding through an operational phase.

Working with clients as per our motto ‘Plan your Mine and Mine your Plan’, we are committed to delivering value to the client. We as well as our associates have been at very senior levels in government as well as the private sector and thus, our solutions are aligned to real life situations and implementable.

Having implemented this culture of creating SOPs for each process to effectively implement all operational activities on the ground in line with SOPs, help us to maximize the top line and bottom line for any project. Going forward we see ourselves working with technology players to develop mining sector specific technology solutions that would be aligned to Indian conditions specifically.

Tell us about the unique services that are provided by ReVal Consulting that make it stand out from the rest in the market?
ReVal is focussing on value generation and to unlock value for our clients, we are providing a one-stop solution for all technical, management, and financial matters. What differentiates ReVal from others is that we are working on the operational planning and implementation part along with our clients. Secondly, we are bringing together experts with multi-geography and multi-mineral experience who have implemented these solutions in a live scenario hence our team has more practical and hands-on experience. Our people have experience and exposure to the latest technologies in the mining sector globally which helps bring the best solutions to clients.

Going forward, what are the goals that you wish to invest in and how do you plan to take them further?
In the future, we would be leveraging learnings from our consulting work to create tools and applications by leveraging technology to make mining cleaner, greener and attractive. We would also be focusing on developing deep capabilities in metal mining and metal manufacturing to broaden our horizons. To achieve these objectives, we would prefer to work with technology players, industry leaders, as well as independent experts, and we are already moving on this track.

Pukhraj Sethiya, Co-Founder & COO, ReVal Consulting
An executive management certificate holder from IIM Ahmedabad and Mining Engineer from IIT Dhanbad, Pukhraj holds CFA (ICFAI) charter and Masters in Financial Analysis. Bringing together a rich mix of corporate and consulting experience spanning over 15 years, Pukhraj holds prolific expertise across Strategy, Project Management, Financial and Commercial Advisory, Transaction and Management Performance Improvement.

Awards & Recognition:Awarded ‘We Applaud’ for developing large client accounts at PwC by Advisory Leader for four years in row and Part of Finalists for ET Young Leader Award, 2018.