CEO of Shipyard Innovation, Ash Bhatia‘s, unique blend of business acumen, technological insight, and wholesome leadership style makes him a true catalyst for corporate innovation. Shipyard Innovation is a Venture Studio & innovation services firm that helps large organisations deliver sustainable & profitable growth. The firm helps ideate, design, test, build, launch and scale digital products and ventures – at speed.
As Ash continues to steer Shipyard Innovation towards success, his unwavering commitment to delivering growth for his clients sets him apart as a visionary leader in the ever-evolving landscape of technology and business.
He brings a varied perspective to Corporate Innovation, approaching it as a seasoned business practitioner rather than a technologist. He believes this demand-led approach, that focuses on both goals of his clients and the needs of their end-customers, delivers more impactful results than being led by technology, which sometimes results in solutions looking for problems.
With over 20 years of experience in the field of enterprise transformation and change delivery, Ash possesses a deep understanding of the intricacies that drive change at large organisations, enabling him to ask the right questions, look around corners and spot the known unknowns. He is very cognizant of the limits of his knowledge that he proactively overcomes through the power of collaboration with technocrats from various domains, considering them an invaluable asset in any team he leads.
Ash’s journey began with a strong foundation in finance, as he qualified to become a Certified Chartered Accountant through an esteemed graduate program at Ernst & Young in London. This background equipped him with a solid understanding of Accounting, Finance and Business Strategy, setting the stage for his future endeavors.
In recent years, Ash’s passion for innovation led him to work with a high-performing team at Motive Partners, a Fintech-focused Private Equity Fund. During his tenure there, he helped establish of a groundbreaking Innovation Lab. The lab collaborated with leading regional banks worldwide to shape fintech innovation & investment strategies. During this tenure, Ash also helped shape the Portfolio Value Creation Framework at the Fund, creating enduring value for the firm and its portfolio companies.
Now, as the driving force behind Shipyard Innovation, Ash and his team are committed to delivering comprehensive solutions throughout the entire innovation lifecycle, progressing ideas from cradle to scale. Their focus is clear: driving growth for their clients and partners. Whether it’s increasing revenue, maximizing profit, or creating a lasting impact, Shipyard Innovation is dedicated to one thing – achieving tangible results.
Below are highlights of the interview:
What motivated you to become a CEO, and how did you progress to your current position at Shipyard Technology Ventures?
I come from an entrepreneurial family, so the desire to run a business has long been engrained in me. As Steve Jobs famously said, the dots always connect backwards. This edict has held true for me too. Looking back, I can see how every piece of my experience, personal and professional, positive and negative, planned and unplanned, has contributed to my ability to do the job that I do today as CEO of Shipyard Innovation.
I believe that there are many routes to get to a position of leadership, and consequently, there are many types of leaders. My experience can generally be viewed as being more broad and varied than deep and specialized, and consequently, as a leader, I am more of generalist with broad-ranging knowledge and skills vs. being a technocrat with skills or knowledge that run deep into a specific domain. Every career path results in strengths, and I feel that in my case, the range of exposure I have had has given me the ability to flex to effectively meet the needs of varying circumstances that arise in leadership by leveraging my various skills and experience to good effect. Beyond this, I believe a core strength of mine is the ability to respond thoughtfully rather than react emotionally when under pressure. I am a student of topics such as leadership, communication, and human behaviour, and I tend to listen to and read content that helps me continually develop. I am currently immersed in Jeffery Gitomer’s content and find all that he says very compelling and relevant to someone in my position.
How would you describe your leadership style? What are the key principles or values that guide your leadership approach?
I would describe my leadership style as being a Coach who leads through doing and enabling others to be the best version of themselves. I firmly believe in teaching people how to fish than handing them fish. A key principle I follow is to lean into any conversation with questions—lots of them! I find this easy to do as I am naturally curious, open-minded, inquisitive and am genuinely interested in people. To put it simply, I believe that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason!
What strategies do you employ to ensure effective communication and collaboration within your organization?
Effective communication and collaboration are, for me, two sides of the same coin. The only strategy I have is to catalyse a culture of openness and acceptance of differences of all kinds in my team, especially intellectual. I firmly believe that rational minds can differ and this principle helps me promote an open and collaborative culture in my team. Beyond this, as a leader, I believe it is important to trust your team and give them room to express themselves and act, even when I disagree with their conclusion. I try my best to stay disciplined in determining what is an “Ash decision” vs. what isn’t. Anecdotally speaking, I aim to make no more than 20% of decisions in any situation and am constantly coaching my team to make the rest.
Failing fruitfully is a strong ethos of ours at Shipyard Innovation, and so with that option on the table, I find people are more willing to communicate, take healthy risks, and collaborate to get things done.
A simple approach I follow to communicating effectively is that when I ask a question, I try to make that question start with a “what”. As an example, the question – “what lead you to that conclusion / decision” – is far more effective at extracting the information I need than “why did you do that”. The former creates an environment that invites open dialogue, while the latter can result in someone feeling that they need to defend themselves, even if you don’t intend it to be so.
This simple approach enables me to have conversations that are not combative and reduces the chances of misunderstandings. Also, I believe that by lessening the risk of making the other person feel uncomfortable, I am increasing the chances that they will share more openly with me, enabling me to understand their perspective better and eventually, empowering me to respond (not react!) in a way that is more impactful for all involved.
What is your vision for Shipyard Innovation’s future? How do you see the company evolving and adapting to industry changes?
We want to be known as the company that helps maximise Return on Investment from innovation. If we can become known as the team that does this consistently, I believe we will achieve all of our goals.
Our vision is to help our clients and partners embrace the fourth industrial revolution and thrive in it. This naturally means that we are constantly working with recently emerged technologies such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, DLT, Spacial Computing and so on. Hence, keeping up with leading and bleeding edge technology developments is very important for us.
As economic circumstances have gotten challenging, I am certainly seeing a change in appetite for investing in innovation. Our clients are continuing to invest but decision making has become slower. We need to constantly be aware of what our clients are focused on, how they are thinking and make ourselves the preferred choice of partner for them to lay their trust in. We are achieving this by focussing on where we have depth of experience/knowledge & unique assets to offer. This includes domains such as Parametric & Predictive-parametric insurance, AI and Machine Learning-based automation, Cards & Merchant Services, and industries such as Banking, Payments, General Insurance, Aviation and Telecoms.
What are the major challenges you face as a CEO in the in the IT sector? How do you overcome these challenges?
The biggest challenge we face is sourcing the talent we need. Along with being an innovation services firm, we are also venture builders, i.e., we sometimes co-invest with our clients to launch digital products and businesses. This means that we need innovation practitioners who can apply their skills while also understanding the commercial realities of actually taking ideas to market and investing to scale them.
We compete in the talent market by focusing on the unique value we offer people who join us. Beyond the table stakes, we have developed a number of USPs such as offering flexible working arrangements, providing unique & challenging work, having a pathway to wealth creation (through equity ownership in new ventures), fostering a positive, trust-centric culture, and of course, a dollop of fun!
What advice would you give to aspiring leaders who are looking to make a significant impact in their respective industries?
There are only two things you need to know about how to be successful in your chosen industry.
Firstly, you HAVE TO love what you do. If you don’t feel a sense of joy and satisfaction at work, you are going to live an unfulfilled life and will not realize your full potential.
Secondly, you need to get a coach. Coaches can be formal or informal, and as you see with sports professionals, will probably need to be changed as your needs evolve. Choose your coaches carefully and ensure they can give you practical and relevant advice because they have walked the path you want to walk. I have found that my coaches have changed quite naturally over time as my career has developed. The key here is to have people you trust who can actually assess where you are, what you are doing, and how well you are doing it, and then are prepared to guide you to get better.
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