The M&A Visionary: Sandeep Dua At Gut and Gusto Group, Dua and his team work with global businesses across industries to chisel their business strategies. This includes organic growth, scaling up growth through strategic M&A's and raising capital, making them culturally ready for the next lap of their growth, coaching CEOs to make them more self-aware of their areas for improvement, aligning and integrating global teams for enhanced output and working on "Play to Potential" business models.

Over the course of 24 years, Sandeep Dua has led multiple business turnarounds, and transformations focusing on strategic organic growth and scaling up of businesses via strategic mergers and acquisitions on a global scale. Maybe that is why he is the sole proponent of transformative growth over transactional growth.

He fundamentally believes in the phrase "Get your hands dirty", and has a cultural mindset which is scrappy, dynamic, disciplined, strongwilled, and core values-based when it comes to building Gut and Gusto Group. Founded in April 2022, Gut and Gusto Group is a global business strategy and M&A consulting firm. Dua feels that for a business to succeed, culture should be an investment and not an expense. "The CEOs own the company culture. The fatal flaw of a leader is the lack of self-awareness which comes as a very costly mistake for any setup," he shares.

He defines his leadership style as 'very situational', "Sometimes you need to lead to show the way and at other times you need to take a backseat and let your people do it."

At Gut and Gusto Group, he and his team work with global businesses across industries to chisel their business strategies. This includes organic growth, scaling up growth through strategic M&A's and raising capital, making them culturally ready for the next lap of their growth, coaching CEOs to make them more self-aware of their areas for improvement, aligning and integrating global teams for enhanced output and working on "Play to Potential" business models. "The word "Potential" is very BIG for me. I am a staunch believer in the fact that we all don't truly realize our potential. We can all do more than we think we can. It takes courage, vulnerability, self-awareness etc. to realize that. I think when we work to actualize our real potential and deliver to that rhythm of need we are the best version of ourselves and imagine when all small and big teams in an organization start doing that we are creating the most value for ourselves and all stakeholders," says the 45-year-old. The company's areas of expertise include mergers & acquisitions, angel investing, global business strategy, global business advisory, and executive coaching & mentoring.

So, is heading an M&A firm difficult? Is coaching the CEO's difficult? "The most difficult challenge is the most interesting for me as well since I thrive in complex business environments and love to solve business problems. The setting up of an A+ talent team and their alignment to the business is one which I have always had ongoing in my head." He and the team constantly are working towards rightly leveraging the 24-hour opportunity clock while working with businesses.

"I think the prime business challenges circle around people, planning and execution. Hiring the right people who can challenge you with sound reasoning helps us all create a culture of openness, meritocracy and high emotional fortitude. The aspects of good strategic planning go deep into the formulation of a rock-solid disciplined business strategy with a very clear sense of the vision, core values and core mission of the organization. It should be clearly drafted, discussed and communicated by treating your employees as partners in your growth journey. Once the sense of optimism is mutual the gaps don't remain and the path to success is clear across all rungs of the ladder within the organization. I think this is what CEOs should strive for while embracing technology and innovation to be the key drivers of growth," he adds.

How is AI being adopted in the company? Is it acting as a deterrent for employees? "We try and emphasize the use, general knowledge and applicability of AI to businesses to enable smart adoption which generates a plethora of benefits enhancing productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. The idea is to make our workforce comfortable and flexible with newer ways of thinking and with the fact that AI is real and is going to stay so the more we embrace it the more we can promote a learning culture with the right intellectual curiosity which will indeed help us." Dua puts strong emphasis on the training and development of his team, "On the strategy level, we define the leading and lagging indicators for businesses. Leading indicators help us predict and lagging indicators help us measure so they are both interdependent on each other. Once we have that set ready, we can accurately forecast, plan and execute in a way that we are one step ahead of the hurricane set out to hit us. The work on leading and lagging indicators is very analytical and metrics-driven."

As he builds the growth flywheel of Gut and Gusto Group, one of his vouched methods to be productive is "Discovering your Why". "That compelling reason of "Why you need something", "The burning need to achieve" or "Why Get things accomplished in a certain way" is far more important than anything else. Rest is all focus on disciplined execution," he shares.

How does a leader keep pace with personal growth and development? Is it important? "I think the constant focus on my own strategic goals and the innate drive keeps me going. The idea is to keep raising the performance bar as compared to what I produced a day or week back. My executive coach insists on marking a "Think Day" on my calendar when I would be away from any possible distractions. It's my 'Me Time'. This has really helped me a lot. When you defocus and then refocus – things can look very different. It gets a burst of fresh energy into my regular routine. The learning qualifier for me lies in the concept of "Know thyself, improve thyself and complement thyself."

At the end of the day, being an inspiring and motivating leader is what matters to Dua. "The essence is to be forward-looking, be collaborative, get things done quickly, keep increasing your self-awareness and promote a learning culture through the organization while moving on to the next goal/challenge. No matter what - I have always had the foundational core values of the organization as my guiding light," he concludes. The three mantras which keep him going include "Keep Climbing, Never stop learning and always innovate."

Fact File

• Age: 45

• Most Memorable Moment as a leader- The most memorable moment for me was being lauded for creating a diversified Global portfolio of branded businesses and an A+ team of professionals over 4 continents under the brand of Entrust Global Group by executing over a dozen acquisitions and few successful start up's.