Rani Bisal – A Philanthropic Leader and a Global Business Transformation Strategist

Rani Bisal is a visionary business leader with over 20 years of experience in transforming businesses across different regions like the US, UK, UAE, SSA, and India. With expertise in Organisational Psychology, Digital Transformation, Technology and Operations, and Customer Success Management, she successfully integrates the company strategy into reality. Rani’s master skills include Business Process Management, Digital Transformation, Product Lifecylce, Enterprise Architecture, and Global Enterprise Commerce.

A Glance at Rani’s Professional Journey

Rani graduated from India with a B-Tech in Mechanical Engineering. She holds a Master’s in Leadership & Strategy from London. Since primary school, Rani has been part of the Information Technology scene in one way or another and her aptitude for binary digit subjects was brilliant. In school, Rani wanted to be a pilot or doctor. But as it turns out, her path led into engineering and then successfully to a career in IT and business transformation.

Later, Rani started her career in 2003 at Satyam Computer Services Ltd and then went on to join the Tatas for international development. In 2019, she joined Dstv Media Sales in South Africa as Chief Technology Officer. This position has seen her leading the company’s business transformation.

Rani is a global transformational leader who has coached & mentored over 200 people in the last ten years. Polishing her professional reputation as not just a business coach, but also as someone who makes genuine efforts to help others. In her spare time, she enriches her approach to life with creative activities such as painting, reading, playing musical instruments, cooking, and travelling across different countries.

Core Aims and Ideals

Rani is driven by the values of Being Present, Self-Belief, Smart Working along with Hard Work, Collaboration, and Trust Uprightness in approach, Transparency, Commitment to learning. Add ‘Discipline’ to that and these rules shape everything she does.

“Self-care through physical movement along with mental exercises such as meditation or yoga is key to keeping your mind sharp for decision-making”, asserts Rani.

In addition to supporting and nurturing talent as well as fostering innovation within the organization, Rani puts a high value on collaboration. For 10 years, she has developed two innovation departments and has been pioneering new ideas from concepts as per the budget. An innovative product that was ideated in 2020, thanks to her efforts, she ensured her team won an innovation award for it in 2023. According to Rani, thinking in collaboration and doing constant brainstorming while appreciating your team for contributing its sharing can do wonders and it is the formula for winning!

Pioneering Future-Readiness in Business

Regarding the pivotal things that need to be improved and made future-ready in a business, Rani stresses four key areas –

• She believes that we should be aligned with both local and global business trends. This calls for constantly knowing new changes happening in the industry and how to use these external/internal partners as a guiding light for your company.

• But that’s just half of the hiring battle for Rani, who discussed how she approaches bringing new employees on board. She focuses on driving a culture of lifelong learning and unlearning, to constantly test the waters with her team so that everyone is evolving according to the latest trends.

• Methodology put simply, Rani underscored that one must be able to identify and map key business processes. She makes sure that standard operating procedures are always kept current and lean. Where processes become convoluted or antiquated, Rani works to re-engineer them and even bring some level of automation so employees can be freed from certain tasks to focus on the more strategic/creative elements.

• “Keep up to date with technology but do not blindly follow trends”, Rani informs. She advises companies to avoid overreaching for custom builds, advising them instead to look at off-the-shelf solutions and simply adopt cost-efficient technology that can serve their needs before giving in just because others are doing so.

Psychological Role in Leading High-Performing Teams

A life-long coaching and mentoring enthusiast, Rani has over a decade of experience in her pocket. This is what sets her apart in this field of work with an educated background as an organisational psychologist and she can get your team engaged. Because Rani becomes so insightful into the behaviours of her team it allows Rani to then work with HR on strategic decisions around where to upskill or coach, leading to not only improvement in well-being but productivity.

Rani’s initiatives sort out stress or dissatisfaction and introduce work-life balance plans like flexible schedules, and employee engagement activities on yoga day to family picnics. She spreads positivity and a fun environment wherever she works, creating a cheerful and active work atmosphere.

Rani is currently pursuing a high course in ACC & PCC level business coaching (ICF Accredited) at GIBS, one of the best schools in South Africa. Today, she is providing mentorship and coaching to a total of 26 professionals across various industries in realizing their potential. Trust, according to Rani is the foundation of any high-performing team. She creates this trust by creating a flat structure room for ideation to move in freely. This not only keeps her team motivated but also makes them competitive and future-ready as the constructs of housing are very dynamic.

The Forces Behind Rani Bisal’s Purpose-Driven Path

Two women were instrumental in putting Rani on the path of living a meaningful life. She was Rani’s mother Rajlaxmi Bisal who inspired her in a big way and according to the former, it made a world of difference altogether. As a child, she looked up to her mother for being an amazing motivator and strategist. Rajlaxmi has five daughters, a husband, her own pets, and household staff to handle. She is the bravest woman Rani knows! While Rajlaxmi sought to become a doctor at first, she opted for the household life.

Rani was taught 3 key lessons that she tries to follow in her personal and professional life to date!

• Customer and people caring
• Why it is crucial to have a plan and a strategy in place?
• Life skills are more crucial than hard skills

In another stage of her life recently at 30, Rani found Sudha Murthy to be a huge influence who is playing an instrumental role in defining the ideals she will pursue further. What Rani learned from Sudha Murthy is that – ‘We all need to be easy with ourselves whether it may please others or not.’

This is what motivated Rani to adopt this philanthropic quality of hers and now she cherishes it so much as in practice.

Navigating Obstacles with Mindful Resolve

For Rani Bisal, challenges are ‘opportunities in disguise’. A visionary CEO had brought her in to change this fossil into a business for the future, and she met with opposition from everyone except that same CEO. At the end of 100 days, upon close observation with Rani, they realized where to focus their change– process, people skills, and products/technology. Key among them was the digitization of client products/offerings, and that 180% uplift in revenue meant it became one of the earliest technology roll-outs on the continent.

Instead of bringing in new people, she saw it as an opportunity to upskill the existing workforce, and their ‘positive can-do attitude’. The whole transformation across tech, product, people, team, and department set-up, etc took 2.2 years, and 8 months spill over the actual plan as all this was happening amidst COVID-19. Those who had originally been against it became the most vocal supporters and were observed being recognized as change champions by Rani herself.

Priceless Words of Wisdom

Rani Bisal, a believer in preaching and practising the message for never-ending learning says, “Leadership is what one breathes beyond names. She says that leadership is a behaviour being demonstrated by aligned vision and values, combined with the skills to help other people prosper. Having a senior title in an organization does not make you an effective leader”. It is the actual execution of the leadership process, not some abstract model.

Rani is a seriously L&D-informed leader. She preaches a coaching and mentoring method where leaders remain fully available to their youth because those young will be the driving force behind the future of our company. She believes that it is crucial to take a people-centric approach towards L&D, not only to develop your existing team members; but also because today’s behaviors are extending into investing in new types.

Rani feels that effective leadership is about being tuned in to the concerns of your team. She encourages workforce engagement by arguing that you must listen to employees, for example, if they seek skill development, mentoring, or coaching. Regardless of how dynamic systems or processes may be the people have common goals and are motivated and satisfied performing their roles. According to her, “People development is by far the highest ROI in terms of customer experience and revenue”, she says.

Rani Bisal’s career progression from 2004 as a developer to 2024 as a Global Transformation Leader is indicative of her conviction that success is a constant state of flux rather than an endpoint. Her life’s mission, which she found via self-mastery, is to mentor and guide others to reach their objectives. She is still dedicated to being there for people in need and coordinating her everyday activities with her life’s mission.

She says, “As one gains experience, the focus shifts to balancing technical skills with people skills. By mid-career, a 50/50 split between both is ideal. At the executive or C-suite level, people skills should take precedence as 100%, while maintaining core technical and business know-how, enabling leaders to guide teams without needing hands-on technical expertise.”

Rani’s Journey to Outstanding Success

Rani shares her success mantra and some key lessons she has learned throughout her journey that drive sustainable growth and value creation.

• Continuous learning and Knowledge sharing
• Continuous and Consistent communication
• Never assume, everyone is on the same page (overcommunication is absolutely a must)
• Don’t underestimate the power of getting aligned with the right Stakeholders consistently.
• Show up & be 100% available to your people.

Regarding her success mantra, Rani says, “Success is very subjective. I celebrate success in every milestone in life be it as little as getting a space in an over-crowded parking lot to finding the tune to a cord on my guitar to painting my Mom’s portrait to implementing an AI-driven forecasting model with 97% accuracy or saving 99% work overload through automation.”

Her journey to the forefront reflects her belief that success is a continuous journey, not a destination. Her life purpose, discovered through self-mastery, centres on enabling others to achieve their goals through guidance and mentorship. She remains committed to being present for those who need her, aligning her daily actions with her life’s purpose.