What motivates you when things get tough? Feel free to be detailed and explain why.
Whenever things become challenging, the challenge itself helps me stay motivated. If you have ever heard of the phoenix bird, you know it crumbles to ashes and rises from the ashes each time.
Each time there is a challenging situation, I don’t crumble to that situation, but the phoenix in me resurrects and takes it to another level. It makes me more energized, motivated, and above all, zestful to overcome the challenge.
Tell us 3 surprisingly easy and 3 surprisingly difficult things about your job.
Every complex situation becomes a moment of reinvention, pushing me to operate at a higher level than before. Driving change, for instance, gives me momentum. I find energy in guiding people through transitions, reshaping mindsets, and turning resistance into shared purpose.
Breaking comfort zones, choosing what seems impossible, and dissolving reluctance within teams fuels me rather than drains me. Even giving individuals freedom over rigid processes comes naturally because I trust outcomes over control, and autonomy ignites performance. Yet, what appears simple often tests me the most.
Practicing restraint, knowing when not to intervene, requires discipline. My hands-off approach is intentional, but stepping back when I can step in requires patience and faith in the team’s growth.
What are the 3 things you like best about your work and why?
I don’t believe in work as in work. I mean, I think it’s part of my life. I breathe business and live business. For me, nothing else has been this important in my entire life. At work, I bring cohesion to my team through collective energy.
The AAA (Ask Amit Anything) initiative enables open, hierarchy-free access to leadership, reflecting my belief that our team is AQe Digital’s most valuable asset and thrives in an environment that encourages empowerment, support, and growth.
My goal is to build a culture where every individual sees themselves as a creator, not just an employee. When people feel valued and aligned, they don’t just contribute. They elevate the entire organization. That’s what fuels our momentum, drives innovation, and keeps us moving forward.
What are the three things you need in work to achieve purpose? Why are they important to you?
For me, purpose isn’t tied to specific goals or milestones. It comes from three core energies that must remain in balance.
1) The first is creative energy: the freedom to imagine new possibilities and challenge the boundaries of what technology can solve.
2) The second is collective energy: the momentum that emerges when people collaborate openly, challenge one another, and take ideas further than any individual could.
3) Third is the energy to take risks: the willingness to step into uncertainty, make bold decisions, and move ahead even when the outcomes aren’t guaranteed.
When these three energies are in harmony, the work feels purposeful, forward-moving, and worth the effort required to build something enduring.
Tell us about a time where you saw a surprising outcome that you did not expect.
Two decades ago, our rapidly growing organization was tasked by the government to build a web app for students to view their 10th- and 12th-grade results. It was a prestigious, public-serving project, so we worked tirelessly. However, we soon hit a roadblock.
On results day, the app crashed. I faced media scrutiny and backlash, but my focus remained on fixing the issue. The problem was the architecture, which couldn’t handle peak traffic, so my team and I quickly redesigned it for reliability.
This experience taught me resilience and reinforced the value of robust, long-term engineering solutions over short-term optics.
How do you get yourself out of a funk? Please share the details.
I leverage the challenge itself to stay motivated. If there is no challenge, I feel lazy. And when I do feel low, I create an impossible challenge for myself. What this means is I will have to be more attentive and focused to overcome such a challenge.
The need for a highly focused and driven CEO to overcome complex challenges is what lifts me each time in the face of adversity.
What is a habit you try to stick to and how has it helped you?
Each week, I make a point to join conversations unrelated to my direct work. I talk with team members to understand their daily challenges. This gives me an unfiltered sense of how decisions land, how people collaborate, and where friction or brilliance arises. It keeps me connected to company details that rarely make it into reports.
Over time, this habit has shaped my leadership more than any formal process. It’s sharpened my intuition, kept me humble, and kept our strategy grounded in people’s real experiences.
What are 3 of your goals (could be mix of personal and professional)?
One goal is to broaden our global perspective by engaging more with customers in different markets. Learning how our solutions impact diverse contexts guides our long-term direction.
Another goal is to build stronger second-line leadership. I’ve learned that company growth comes from innovation and from people able to carry the vision forward, so developing this next layer is a priority.
My top goal is to achieve 300% growth for AQe Digital, supported by a structured roadmap we’ve developed as a team. Together, these goals make me a more present and future-ready leader.
What is your favorite book and why?
‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ It is the book that stands out for me. It captures a simple but powerful truth about change and reinforces the importance of adaptability, awareness, and the principles of timely action that have remained relevant throughout my journey.
That said, with a personal library of over 1,000 books, my thinking is shaped by continuous reading rather than a single title. Plus, I also follow many global philosophers and am always curious to know more about world history.
If you could go back 2 years and give yourself advice, what would it be?
After navigating change for over 25 years, experience is not a limitation; it is an anchor. But at the same time, be bold and always look for something crazy. With experience and a bold attitude, you can achieve the unthinkable. Plus, my younger self must understand that confidence in judgment, especially in times of uncertainty, is what sustains long-term leadership.
Who has been your biggest mentor in life (personal or professional) and how have they helped you?
My most influential mentor taught me the value of learning from young minds. Raw, unfiltered energy often sparks the most original ideas. Plus, I usually refer to philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Niccolò Machiavelli. This habit has shaped my thinking around power, purpose, human behavior, and independent thought.
Just for fun, what is your favorite dessert?
Caramel custard. For its simplicity, balance, and timeless appeal.