Raj N. Phani: Reinventing The Fintech Ecosystem With Skills & Knowledge
Raj N. Phani
Founder & Chairman
Pioneering futuristic and value based entities is ingrained in his DNA. From conceptualizing organized gifting through eYantra to setting up one of the first blockchain brands and launching virtual cards, every plan of action proves that he is a true visionary. As a well-known face in the business fraternity, he has been covered by leading magazines such as The Smart CEO, Business Today, Internet World, and Outlook Business.
The industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in both strategic and operational aspects, has played a significant role in the evolution of Zaggle. As the Founder and Chairman, he is leading the organization with great efficiency and driving towards the pinnacle of success. CEO Insights is much privileged to engage an exclusive conversation with Raj. Indeed there's a lot to learn from this maven. Kindly peruse the following snippets of valuable nuggets from him.
Brief us on your educational and professional background
I am an economics graduate from Delhi University, post which I completed an MBA from Fore School of Management. After the acquisition of my first company, I pursued MBA from Stern School of Business (New York University). Even before I completed my MBA, I got an opportunity to work at Price waterhouse Coopers as a consultant. Later, I started a company called eYantra. I have extensive experience in setting up businesses, structuring them, driving sales, and scaling them to
the next level. With highlevel management and leadership skills, I am on the Board of Directors of Loyalty Reward, eYantra, SSL Ltd., Zaggle, and Privilege Corner. I am also part of multiple founders and angel investors group, which helped me learn about the challenges faced by founders to access credit and meet their business expenses. This led to the foundation of ZikZuk financial Technology Company that solves financial pain points of SMEs and startups.
Throw some light on Zaggle. What role do you take up as the founder of the brand?
Zaggle is a payments and data company that offers world class financial solutions and products to manage the business expenses of corporates, SMEs, & Startups through automated and innovative workflows. The company focuses on building a network agnostic payment system and a seamless user experience. Zaggle was founded with a vision to become a global digital bank and take banking to corporates and consumers. The banking processes and broken value chains in the industry are filled with perplexities. The manual or partially digital processes are difficult.With our experience and interaction with various business groups, we realized that businesses face lots of problems in managing their financial requirements and expense management ranging from complex workflows to risks & frauds. After spending months understanding and researching these pain points, we conceptualized Zaggle as a revolutionary solution.
As a founder, I was very clear with the four tenets that my company should adhere to. I wanted my brand to be global, scalable, tech driven, and backed by experience. These four principles are crucial for any of my ventures. I am more of a strategist and a steward of governance at Zaggle. Beyond being a chairman and founder, I am a people leader. I talk to the team, listen to them, and understand the loopholes. Accordingly, I guide and advise Avinash, the CEO.
Portray the nuances of your leadership style and strategies to launch a successful business.
My management style is very simple. My strategy for building a good team begins right in the hiring process. We hire people to tell us what to do, we do not hire to tell them what to do!
Also, I follow the III model, which means Intent, Intellect, and Intuition. I focus on these three aspects while making any decision or starting something new. I question myself
On the personal front, Raj enjoys organic farming, watching comedy shows, playing golf cricket,and badminton
Throw some light on Zaggle. What role do you take up as the founder of the brand?
Zaggle is a payments and data company that offers world class financial solutions and products to manage the business expenses of corporates, SMEs, & Startups through automated and innovative workflows. The company focuses on building a network agnostic payment system and a seamless user experience. Zaggle was founded with a vision to become a global digital bank and take banking to corporates and consumers. The banking processes and broken value chains in the industry are filled with perplexities. The manual or partially digital processes are difficult.With our experience and interaction with various business groups, we realized that businesses face lots of problems in managing their financial requirements and expense management ranging from complex workflows to risks & frauds. After spending months understanding and researching these pain points, we conceptualized Zaggle as a revolutionary solution.
As a founder, I was very clear with the four tenets that my company should adhere to. I wanted my brand to be global, scalable, tech driven, and backed by experience. These four principles are crucial for any of my ventures. I am more of a strategist and a steward of governance at Zaggle. Beyond being a chairman and founder, I am a people leader. I talk to the team, listen to them, and understand the loopholes. Accordingly, I guide and advise Avinash, the CEO.
Portray the nuances of your leadership style and strategies to launch a successful business.
My management style is very simple. My strategy for building a good team begins right in the hiring process. We hire people to tell us what to do, we do not hire to tell them what to do!
Also, I follow the III model, which means Intent, Intellect, and Intuition. I focus on these three aspects while making any decision or starting something new. I question myself
do I have the intention of doing it? Are we intellectually capable to do it? What does my gut with experience say? Based on these, the majority of our decisions are taken.
As part of the management success, we have built a team where 60 percent of them have been with us since the inception. They have grown multifold along with the company. They are the champions and brand ambassadors of Zaggle. They are extremely passionate and work relentlessly towards the vision, building one layer at a time.
The best part is, we listen to the customers and talk to them. We understand where they are positioned in their own industry. And figure out how the next new day in their business would look like. By analyzing all these factors we offer products that would align with their growth.
Raj N. Phani, Founder, Zaggle
With 20+ years of experience in business consulting, Raj founded Zaggle in 2011 for providing a network-agnostic payment platform where traders and consumers could interact. Raj worked with Price Water house Cooper Pvt. Ltd and eYantra and acclaimed skills and experience in business development from scratch with sales driven success and scaling the business to the optimum level. Raj has won many awards including `Small Scale Entrepreneur of the Year' award in 2007 and has been featured for his vision in renowned media houses.
Wise Thoughts
•Celebrate Failures! When you fail, you will learn.
•It took years for me to balance the personal and personal life
•It is important to have a peaceful time.
Nevertake professional work back home.
Raj's note on most satisfactory milestones
Launching the brand stores through eYantra was one of the relishing experiences because it was a one-of-a-kind invention no one had heard of. We always aspire to create unique products and services that solve the pain points of businesses with world-class technologies. One such innovation was the virtual cards, which gave us an edge in the pandemic. Nobody else in the market has such a new-age idea when the world was taken away by the digital storm.
I successfully led the company to over Rs.300 Crores valuation and another two companies to over Rs.150 Crore valuation. Touching the $2 billion transaction was an extremely gratifying moment.
At present, we want to take the brand global and probably reach the countries where we would create an ecosystem. With a core focus on innovation, we are looking forward to work on embedded chip-based payment systems, which will be the first-of-its-kind in the industry.
As part of the management success, we have built a team where 60 percent of them have been with us since the inception. They have grown multifold along with the company. They are the champions and brand ambassadors of Zaggle. They are extremely passionate and work relentlessly towards the vision, building one layer at a time.
The best part is, we listen to the customers and talk to them. We understand where they are positioned in their own industry. And figure out how the next new day in their business would look like. By analyzing all these factors we offer products that would align with their growth.
Raj N. Phani, Founder, Zaggle
With 20+ years of experience in business consulting, Raj founded Zaggle in 2011 for providing a network-agnostic payment platform where traders and consumers could interact. Raj worked with Price Water house Cooper Pvt. Ltd and eYantra and acclaimed skills and experience in business development from scratch with sales driven success and scaling the business to the optimum level. Raj has won many awards including `Small Scale Entrepreneur of the Year' award in 2007 and has been featured for his vision in renowned media houses.
Wise Thoughts
•Celebrate Failures! When you fail, you will learn.
•It took years for me to balance the personal and personal life
•It is important to have a peaceful time.
Nevertake professional work back home.
Raj's note on most satisfactory milestones
Launching the brand stores through eYantra was one of the relishing experiences because it was a one-of-a-kind invention no one had heard of. We always aspire to create unique products and services that solve the pain points of businesses with world-class technologies. One such innovation was the virtual cards, which gave us an edge in the pandemic. Nobody else in the market has such a new-age idea when the world was taken away by the digital storm.
I successfully led the company to over Rs.300 Crores valuation and another two companies to over Rs.150 Crore valuation. Touching the $2 billion transaction was an extremely gratifying moment.
At present, we want to take the brand global and probably reach the countries where we would create an ecosystem. With a core focus on innovation, we are looking forward to work on embedded chip-based payment systems, which will be the first-of-its-kind in the industry.