Arijit Shome discusses managing treasury functions and refinancing debt while working in Saudi Arabia, sharing how he adapted to life abroad and balanced family considerations alongside leadership responsibilities in an international corporate setting.
Foreign What I would say is moving from my home country, the flexibility that I was used to all those years. So those things are somewhat different when you go over and work in Saudi Arabia. But I would say is one of the primary things which kept me motivated and kept me going was the organization. And I primarily believe that if you are good and you like your work, you like your organization, all those become all becomes primary and everything else falls in place and becomes secondary. I would say is from a family perspective. My son was very small at that point of time. So there was a big change so far as education is concerned from his moving from his home country to Saudi Arabia to Riyadh. But I would say is that we have to work out a compromise. And at the end of the day, life is all about compromises. You have something good, you have something which is not so good and you try to balance out. You cannot have the best of the world in all circumstances. So definitely, I would say is you look for opportunities not only on the professional side or the personal side. You get to meet with your countrymen who are also expats in Saudi Arabia. You build up a team who work on developing and meeting at regular intervals over the weekends or the evenings. So all this is definitely something which has helped me in living and working in Saudi Arabia for a decade. I joined Al John Group at a time when the economic condition was not really very good. And essentially we had to make sure that the business from a Treasury perspective is managed very well. It had a sub certain financings in place, but essentially it was nearing its maturity and there were need to sort of manage it effectively. So basically the FMCG business was needing for cash and refi was supposed to be done because of the maturity profile was coming near. So that refi was done in 2019. That was for the FMCG business. Then the real estate and the hospitality business had also certain debt on its books which was also coming to its maturity and a refi was required. So we work towards with the relationship banks to raise a 12 year financing essentially stretching the cash flow to ensure that the loan obligations are met effectively. Besides this, repatriation challenges of cash from jurisdictions in Africa where again similar to India, in my experience with nalco, where challenges or restrictions from the central bank certain regulations to be followed for repatriation of surplus cash from jurisdictions like Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa, which also had to be managed and made sure that repatriation happened with all the necessary approvals in due time. So far as development of the team is concerned I think the primary objective would be to sort of make sure that they do whatever they are required to be done. It's not absolutely essential that we need to dig down their necks at all times, but just to make sure that they understand their role, they know what they are required, what is required from them by the organization and from me as the treasurer to make sure that they deliver what is expected at the right time. I think that's very, very important. We have to give the team the FLE flexibility, right? To make sure that we have ample flexibility and freedom to move forward, but to ensure that within the overall framework that we all work or require to work.
