Sanjeev KumarCEO

I grew up in Pune in a simple, lower-middle-class family. My father was a civilian defense employee. We lived with limited means and in a military setup. I went to a Kendriya Vidyalaya school where I played hockey and spent a lot of time in the library, which taught me to take my own value-based decisions.

College of Engineering, Pune is one of the oldest engineering institutions in Asia. Studying there was a 360-degree experience of academics, sports, and rowing. It built my passion for mathematics and engineering, and the common goal for most students back then was to either enter the civil services or defense.

During my first job interview, the managing director did not speak to me for forty-five minutes. I sat and observed his meticulous details. When he finally spoke, the entire conversation revolved around character. He taught me that you can hire skilled people, but character is what defines the culture of an organization.

It was accidental. In 1997, a friend asked for help with a construction estimate because the quotes he received were double the actual cost. I helped him build the house and made three times my monthly salary in a week. That motivated me to withdraw my provident fund and start my own business.

I was preparing for the civil services and had cleared the mains exam. Just two or three days before my interview, my father suffered a sudden hemorrhage and heart attack. I had to immediately find a job to support my family and younger siblings, which put an end to my civil services goals.

In 2009, I was working as a regional director for IL&FS and DTSS was our service provider. We were facing serious quality issues, so I set up a meeting with the co-founder, Shamsheer. After a frank discussion, he called me the next day for coffee. We talked for over two hours and he invited me to join his team to help scale the company.

I climbed every step in the hierarchy over sixteen years, from regional head to national head of operations, COO, and eventually CEO. When I transitioned, I had to learn the difficult practice of letting go of the day-to-day operations I had run for years and focusing on strategy and corporate culture.

When you step into a CEO role, you naturally want to keep doing the operational work you are comfortable with. I worked with a professional coach who had a manufacturing background. Over eight months, he helped me shift my mindset to collaborate across departments and learn to say no to minor operational details.

I saw a janitor cleaning a large glass wall without the proper tools. He had to bend down constantly to pick up his cloth and spray. When I asked how I could help, he suggested a simple tool holster. I realized that equipping workers with the right tools and training prevents fatigue and elevates their work into a skilled career.

We refer to our frontline workers as warriors. We ensure their social security and offer structured training programs like the smart supervisor and executive development programs. We have people who started as janitors with basic education and have elevated themselves to general managers running business units.

We link our training metrics and customer service indexes directly to manager incentives. We also deploy mentors who are responsible for the performance of their teams. Since we operate with a constant labor shortage, training and counseling are much better than letting people go.

The biggest challenge is retaining the younger generation of workers aged twenty-four to thirty, who are restless for rapid career growth. We also navigate rising labor costs, labor shortages, and increasing client demands for sustainable, green cleaning solutions that reduce their carbon footprint.

We have a custom mobile application that connects all our frontline warriors. The app displays their credentials, payouts, and allows them to raise grievances directly. The moment a grievance is raised, the system enforces a strict turnaround time that our management team is held accountable to solve.

I believe in absolute accessibility. Having my number available builds confidence. While I do not solve every problem myself, having my number out there forces the management team to be highly accountable so that workers do not have a reason to contact me directly in the first place.

TOP stands for trust, ownership, and passion. Trust is our core value. We must build trust with our customers by meeting commitments, trust with our employees by offering stable careers, and trust with our board, bankers, and government officials through strict statutory compliance.

First-time managers must accept the pain and chaos of leadership. Do not stress over targets because a well-motivated team will take care of the results. Most importantly, do not ignore your health or skip meals because of work stress. Manage yourself first so you can manage your team.

I am heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his selfless purpose. In business, the book Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt had a major impact. It taught me that people fail to achieve their goals due to systemic constraints, and a leader's primary role is to identify and eliminate those constraints.